Zuzu wrote about this a few days ago, but I’ll add this article from the NYTimes about the Catholic church and the debate over condoms to further demonstrate the tenuous connection between a professed love for life and an actual demonstration of that belief.
The issue is AIDS. Church officials recently confirmed that Pope Benedict XVI has requested a report on whether it might be acceptable for Catholics to use condoms in one narrow circumstance: to protect life inside a marriage when one partner is infected with the HIV virus or is sick with AIDS.
Here, we’ve got all the things that the Church claims to hold dear: The sanctity of the marital relationship. Marital love between a man and a woman. Life.
And yet there’s a conflict about whether married people should or should not attempt to avoid HIV infection.
The issue has surfaced repeatedly in recent years as one of the most complicated and delicate facing the church. For years, some influential cardinals and theologians have argued for a change for couples affected by AIDS in the name of protecting life, while others have fiercely attacked the possibility as demoting the church’s long advocacy of abstinence and marital fidelity to fight the disease.
Advocate abstinence and marital fidelity as much as you want, but all the marital fidelity in the world isn’t going to prevent HIV transmission if your husband has it and you’re having sex with him. The answer, then, should be abstinence for life, even though you’re married? That hardly seems practical — or something that many women are in a position to demand.
“It’s just hard to imagine that any pope — and this pope — would change the teaching,” said Austin Ruse, president of the Culture of Life Foundation, a Catholic-oriented advocacy group based in Washington that opposes abortion and contraception.
See, we love life – except, you know, when the people we’re talking about are born. Then we love masochism, guilt and personal deprivation!
The debate has two levels: one on moral theology and church doctrine, the other public relations and politics. Many factors are driving the debate: The church is experiencing its greatest growth in Africa, which has the most severe AIDS problem. Much health care in Africa is provided by Catholic charities, whose workers, barred from providing condoms, have often spoken of being torn between church doctrine and the need to prevent disease.
More broadly, critics of the current Vatican policy say it is hard for the church to remain consistent on “life” issues, like its opposition to abortion and euthanasia and the death penalty, when condom use can help prevent the spread of AIDS.
Let’s see… consistency, or saving the lives of millions of people. I can see how that would be a tough choice.
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Condom use causes neither abortion nor death nor euthanasia. It prevents abortion, rather, as you can’t have an abortion if you aren’t pregnant. Don’t they want to prevent abortions?
I read that as saying that critics of the current Vatican policy – you know, the ones who think that using a condom to prevent AIDS might actually sometimes be a good idea – are saying that the Vatican’s absolute opposition to condoms is inconsistent with its concern for life.
Sex for non-procreative purposes? What?!??
One of the most frustrating things about the Catholic church, I think, is the clinging to certain positions that are very, very impractical. Condom usage and contraception to help decrease the number of abortions by preventing the unwanted pregnancies from ever occurring in the first place…would mean making a compromise. And we can’t have that, nope!
Condom use causes neither abortion nor death nor euthanasia. It prevents abortion, rather, as you can’t have an abortion if you aren’t pregnant. Don’t they want to prevent abortions?
If you read the likes of D@wn &den and others, you’ll find that they assume that people using birth control are so averse to the idea of having children, that they’ll naturally abort if a breakthrough pregnancy does occur. It’s part of that whole “mentality” argument. They also assume that anyone who wants to keep abortion legal must also not want to have children, at all, and would jump to abort any pregnancy that did occur in their lives.
What, only married people deserve to have their lives protected?
You know, every time I think I’ve got a handle on how this patriarchy thing goes, I stumble across something that leaves me open mouthed.
The thought of HIV positive men knowingly infecting their wives because, to them and the Catholic Church, that is a lesser evil than using a condom. The thought of women allowing their husbands to do so because they have been taught that that is right and that they have no other option.
Christ.
I’m going to defend the Church here because, as a religious Jew, I know how annoying and offensive it is when somebody passes judgement on a religious tradition without any regard for the theological ideas underlying it. The case here is a conflict between two values that the Church espouses: the sanctity of marriage on one hand and disease prevention on the other. So is a change of policy justified? What are the mechanisms for change in the Church? What principles have previous popes appealed to in order to justify innovation? When was the Church’s position on birth-control first articulated and what was the justification? Does it still apply? Jill, you’re in law school so you should probably appreciate the importance of these questions. There’s a way to criticize a religious policy while respecting its integrity, namely to criticize it from the inside.
There are also many women, especially in Africa, who aren’t empowered to demand that their partners use condoms. They’re taught by their society, and their church, to do what their husbands tell them.
Well, I think the guy has to stick to his ideals and in fact, why stop there? Why not bring back full scale exorcisms for mental illness cures, make all the women who break their obedience burn at the stake and while we’re at it, let’s just bring the Inquisition back as well. Nothing like fighting a few demons and it would at least maybe give the godbags something to do as well as cut down on the demand for cooking fuels, I mean imagine all the outdoor barbeques!
Me, although I’m an anognistic, when the time comes, I’ll get out the ole clawfoot, bury her partly in the ground, renounce my hedonism and place Mary right in there, to guard my crabgrass. When the Inquisition comes to town, they will hopefully drive right by.
And so much for sitting on the right hand of Jesus when I die, I want the Big Chair in the Upper Room right next to the pope. Maybe he’ll let me hold that gold stick thing he carries around and wave it at all the sinners who come to kiss his ring.
I wasn’t born Catholic, so am doomed to hell according to what my catholic childhood friends said, no matter how much I might try, but I have hope.
Just like all the Catholics have hope that the Vatican might give a rat’s ass about reality.
I doubt most women in this situation know their husband’s HIV status.
Huh. See, I don’t want children, at all, ever, and that’s why I always use a minimum of two forms of birth control. Because I’d infinitely rather play it safe and not get pregnant. Owing to the fact that I’m under no illusion that abortion is one of those fun things that will totally fulfill me. It’s like the wingnuts think pro-choice women are out joining clubs so they can go for abortions iwth their friends, and then get pedicures afterwards.
Re: this idea that someone with a “contraceptive mentality” will automatically abort if they get pregnant while on contraception is just wacky. I know a woman who has had three unplanned pregnancies in her life. One at 18, which resulted in abortion, one at 30, which resulted in her first child (boyfriend walked out on her, but at 30, with a good job and a condo, she was in a pretty good place to become a single mom, which, clearly is what she wanted in the situation), and one at 42, which resulted in her third child (second child was planned, and occurred after she married a guy she never would’ve met if she hadn’t chosen to continue that pregnancy – he was a junior lawyer at the firm which was handling her attempts to get her son’s bio father to pay his child support). Both those were unplanned but not necessarily unwanted pregnancies, even though she was “contracepting”.
I’d say it makes a big difference in terms of whether to abort how old you are, how educated you are (in terms of what kind of financial support you can give a child), whether you’re in a strong longterm relationship with a supportive guy who is also happy about the unplanned pregnancy, etc. etc. Not all of these conditions have to be present, but having at least a few of them definitely helps. The decision a woman makes re: abortion at one particular time in her life may very well not be the same decision she makes under totally different circumstances.
Besides, a significant number of women who have abortions already have children. They know what pregnancy is like, tehy know what the end result is when they carry a pregnancy to term, and they abort anyway, often for the sake of the children they already have. Call it a cost-benefit analysis. They want to maximize the chances that their kids will have a good life, and if they carry ot term, the extra mouth to feed may end up sinking a family which was getting by before, but only just.
So, women who ahve abortions are selfish HOW?
Ratzinger is known to say that it was impossible to fight against the nazis back in the days when he was in the hitler youth, basically sacrificing his moral duty to fight evil for his life, but he seems quite happy to sacrifice several million people for his morals now.
They’re taught by their society, and their church, to do what their husbands tell them.
Yeah, mainly it’s the south african catholic church of course, and those churchs that say “damn the HIV, God wants you coupling like rabbits” are also churchs that aren’t exactly staunch supporters of a wife’s right to say no.
This is exactly why I left the Church. In a nutshell.
I work for a Catholic organization (at least I will for another two weeks, anyway) that has always stated that its commitment was to the poor, the sick, and so forth. Starting next year, the company health care plan will no longer pay for any medications or treatments which are unethical (ethics determined by the teachings of the Church). This of course means that all employed here will have their medical treatment dictated by their employer rather than their doctors. Which also means that if you are not in a position to pay for “unethical” medical treatments or procedures, your health will be in jeopardy. Culture of life?
“I’m going to defend the Church here because, as a religious Jew, I know how annoying and offensive it is when somebody passes judgement on a religious tradition without any regard for the theological ideas underlying it. The case here is a conflict between two values that the Church espouses: the sanctity of marriage on one hand and disease prevention on the other. So is a change of policy justified? What are the mechanisms for change in the Church? What principles have previous popes appealed to in order to justify innovation? When was the Church’s position on birth-control first articulated and what was the justification? Does it still apply? Jill, you’re in law school so you should probably appreciate the importance of these questions. There’s a way to criticize a religious policy while respecting its integrity, namely to criticize it from the inside.”
Allow me to bring my vast knowledge of theologistics to bear and answer your questions:
They made some shit up.
Now that we’ve solved that perplexing theological problem, I have to say I agree with your statement here. Let’s bring back Aztec human sacrifice.
And don’t give me any bull about the sanctity of live or blah blah blah, remember, we’re criticising theology from the inside.
David says:
A couple responses, David. I am Jew who, while not nopt Orthodox, has studied Talmud, has heard different opinions from rabbis, and has now begun to practice a post-denominational progressive Judaism that is nonetheless observant.
First, you should know that Jill is (was? I don’t remember) Catholic, so your implication that she’s passing judgement as an outsider is off. I do think this is relevant. I myself happen to think that much of Catholicism is just nutters, but I’m not going to get started on it because it’s not mine.
Second, you’re glossing some of the very important distinctions between Catholicism and Judaism in your charge that this should policy should be debated on its theological points. Judaism has no “central” or “official” interpretation of the texts. You can reference the Talmud all you want, but it is basically a record of debate—with some resolution, yes—but one can use the dissenting opinion as well. In addressing contemporary issues of practice, one can choose which rabbi one wants to consult for their opinion. Once a rabbi has responded, you’ve got to go by that, but there are ways to inquire as to how a rabbi will likely feel about an issue before making your inquiry.
This is entirely different in Catholicism. Yes, local parishes might put more or less emphasis on one issue or another, choose to enforce one Church teaching or another, but at the end of the day, there’s an “official” version, and there’s basically no arguing. That’s the thing. You can argue all you like about the theological points, but in the end, if you don’t go by what the Church says you’re a bad Catholic. Does the Chief Rabbinate of Israel have this kind of authority? (Well, it does in some domestic matters, but not in determining the fate of your soul.) Does anyone have to care about the tshuvot (official opinions) put out by the Jewish Theological Seminary (the Conservative movement’s body)? Not especially.
Sure, you can debate all of this “from the inside,” as you say, but this takes place in a very different context than in Judaism, which you failed to acknowledge.
well, the leaders of the catholic church are nothing if not politicians, and it’s just soooo important to stay ‘on message.’
Well, I already have two kids (very much wanted pregnancies), but if I ever get pregnant again there will definitely be abortion in my future. I just can’t even contemplate having more children. It doesn’t mean I don’t love the ones I already have, it just means that I value my my already born children and my mental health too much to have more. D**n E**n and her ilk are just plain idiots lacking in any empathy whatsoever.
People tend to forget that the Catholic Church wasn’t obsessed with conception until very recently; for centuries, the point at which ensoulement was deemed to have occurred was at quickening. In fact, if I recall from my tiptoe-through-the-tulips at the Vatican site, the “abortion gets you automatically excommunicated” thing only dates back to 1978 or so (right when JPII got in). Papal infallibility as a doctrine is only a bit more than a hundred years old.
So, “tradition” in the Catholic Church pretty much means whatever the old men at the Vatican want it to mean. Roasting Jews and heretics was at one time traditional, but we don’t contend that it’s one that needs to be followed today.
An example that I forgot to bring up that I think illustrates a lot of what I’m talking about:
Traditionally, Jewish marriage contracts (ketubot) have represented the purchase of the bride by the groom, complete with a token price paid. Many folks have said this is fucked up. Some have just sucked it up and done it anyway, some have rejected ketubot and some have created an alternative practice, using adapted forms of contracts for business transactions that have Jewish biblical precedent (I’m not sure about what form these actually take).
But here’s the point: there is room for this in Judaism. I don’t know much about your Jewish position (my guess is that by “religious” you probably mean either observant Conservative or Modern Orthodox), but more than likely you don’t think these adaptations I have brought up are legitimate. Still, these things have historical precedent, and even if, like the extremely rare event that happened to Morechai Kaplan, I do get excommunicated, who cares? That doesn’t close off Jewish life to me. Not so with Catholicism.*
* Someone who actually knows something about Catholicism, unlike me, might want to correct me.
People (including many conservative Catholics) forget that the Church has allowed condom use in the not so distant past when they allowed certain missionary nuns working in areas where rape was prevalent to carry condoms to protect themselves from pregnancy and disease. The reasoning, I believe, goes something like this: sex belongs within marriage and marital sex must include both the unitive and procreative aspects of sexual intimacy in order to be licit. Therefore, since a) these were sexual acts outside of marriage and b) since the unitive aspect is obviously absent in rape, then it’s not really licit sex anyway.
And I agree. There are documented cases where victims have indeed been able to talk their rapists into using condoms, so it certainly is advisable for women working in violent areas where rape is a very real likelihood to carry condoms. Personally, I think carrying loaded weapons might make more sense, but I suppose if the woman isn’t extremely confident about her ability to use the weapon quickly and efficiently, a loaded gun might end up being used against her or taken by the perpetrators, so condoms aren’t a bad second choice.
In these societies where AIDs is a major health problem and where the right for a woman to say no to her husband is pretty much nonexistant, I think you can use the same reasoning behind the Vatican’s permission in the nun/rape situation. These are not marriages where sexual intimacy is being used to promote the unitive aspect of marriage, and the procreative aspect probably isn’t really being sought after with a loving and open heart, either.
So, the precedent exists and the reasoning is legit. But watch how many Catholics will jump ship should this become official policy. It’ll all come back to “it’s not faaaaiiiirr, how come they can use condoms and we can’t!”. Because, you know, they’re all so genuinely open to life and all…and NFP is such a joy and an enhancement to their marriages… /sarcasm
And maybe I was too young to notice it if it did happen, but I haven’t noticed the idea of conception and big families being a political issue until fairly recently (read: the last 5 years or so). I don’t recall articles in the 80’s and early 90’s telling us that the population is fast declining, and if we don’t get out there and have 4,5, children apiece by age 25, that the wrong kinds of people will take over the country. Or, non-Catholics writing opinion columns about how contraception “destroys” society.
I heard that argument inside of the Church of course, but it always seemed to stay in church, not in the NYT, conservative political conferences, etc.
That seems to be a post-9/11 thing, and the religious folk are just eating it up (and claiming victory that so-called “secular” conservatives are seeing the light too).
If someone older/more politically active before 2001 has noticed otherwise, please shout!
zuzu, even that automatic excommunication thing comes with some caveats – the person has to know that the offense (in this case, abortion) will incur an automatic excommunication at the time they’re committing it. On paper and in theory, what the Catholic Church teaches is not really as bad as people think it is – at least not as tyrranical and overbearing. It’s just that so many of the individuals representing the Church are, well, complete assholes and that these are the people Catholics and non-Catholics are encountering as “the Church”.
Not that the institution doesn’t have huge, huge issues when it comes to their understanding and attitudes towards women, marriage, sexuality, parenthood, reality, etc., etc., etc.
Silly Marian, don’t you know it didn’t become an issue until the numbers of brown people started gaining on the numbers of white people? The natalists are concerned only about white women breeding; they’d rather the brown women just stopped.
PHLAF, yeah, I understand that there are caveats. But the point remains that this wasn’t even considered an automatically-excommunicable offense until very recently.
Oh, right. I forgot.
Well Marian is in quite a pickle, then. What’s a white lady with a brown husband to do??
heh Jill, well I can’t find the blog entry anymore, but there was a Hindu cleric who said that Indian Hindus have a duty to outpopulate the Muslims too. So I guess whatever kids I do have could be considered little anti-Al-Qaeda soldiers. ;-)
This here is a perfect example of why traditionalist, hierarchical, top-down religion is bad. And yes, i know that of which i speak, as i’m a lapsed Southern Baptist.
I didn’t mean to comment on Jill’s religion and I’m sorry if it came across that way. My point was that the critcism in Jill’s post was from an outsider perspective in that it didn’t deal with the relevant theology. For all I know, the progressives within the Church are right but if you want to make a case for that, you have to do it from Catholicism itself.
Also, Matan, you took my analogy to Judaism way too far. You’re right that Halakhah (Jewish law) functions very differently in more ways than I can list here. My point wasn’t to compare the two. I prefaced my comment by mentioning my Judaism because I’m offended when a similar outsider attack is made against particular halakhic positions.
But since you brought it up… a ketubah isn’t a marriage contract, it’s a prenuptual agreement dealing with alimony (yes, the Talmud has provisions for alimony) and has nothing to do with “purchasing” a bride.
I understood what you were saying. This is what I’m saying: It is highly possible to challenge Halakhah. It is very very difficult to challenge Catholic dogma (is this the right word?) because, unless changes are made at the top, such changes would not be official. Within Judaism, one can form a new movement or a community with a reformulated halakhah and still consider oneself Jewish (even if some other Jews would consider such a movement transgressive). You can only do this in a non-hierarchically organized religion.
Thanks for the correction on ketubot. I was mixing up a couple of things–mostly the alimony and the mohar, the price traditionally paid by the groom to the father of the bride. The essential point I was trying to make was to contrast the options possible within Judaism (for example, look at Rachel Adler’s Brit Ahuvim/Ahuvot, Lovers’ Covenant at http://artketubah.com/Ketubah/ketubah_text_samesex.shtml#brit) with, say the Sacraments in Catholicism, which seem to my untutored eye, to be much more rigid.
Millions have alread died of AIDS, and now they’re saying “oops.”
I find it humorous too Marian… I actually started having children at the prescribed early age (my daughter was born when I was 23, my son when I was 24, although he passed away shortly after and this one will be born when I am 25) and wouldn’t abort if I were to find myself unexpectedly pregnant unless said pregnancy was going to kill me or the baby. Yet, it is automatically assumed that simply because I don’t view myself as a damn baby factory who needs to have 1 child every 19 months that I view all unplanned pregnancies as evil burdens that must be destroyed. God forbid I take a break and let my body recooperate, heal and maybe shed some of the baby weight I’ve been hauling around so that if I wanted to have another baby in the future, I could do so in a healthy manner. Sigh. I just don’t get it I guess.
“Automatically assumed” is the key phrase here. It’s amazing how these supposedly Christian, supposedly “holy”, supposedly “righteous” people assume so much about others based on statistics (substantiated or unsubstantiated) and make all sorts of dire predictions and accuse them of all sorts of sinful behavior. Isn’t bearing false witness a sin? That was still one of the ten commandments last time I checked.
And the Church allows non-NFP birth control in some situations already, and has allowed it in the past for non-married people. Why all these johnny-come-latelys are freaking out over this, I don’t know. It’s just not that new a concept.
But the usual holier-than-thous, who don’t have a clue as to Church history, about the rules of double effect, about the cultural and social histories of the areas this latest problem affects, will start judging and pontificating and assuming and will have pretty much sent everyone to hell in about five minutes flat.
Thanks to whoever forwarded me that sleazy Tony’s blog post about me. Perhaps he and his little friend, “Amy G.” should have asked me what my situation was first before they jumped to a bunch of conclusions. What’s really hilarious is that Amy G. then goes on to make a blog post on her blog about how she, as a superextradoubleholy Catholic, shouldn’t judge. Funny how fast she judged me and my marriage when she was playing the gossip game with her friend, Tony.
Whatever it is they have, I definitely don’ t want it, thank you very much. And if turning people into judgmental, assuming busybodies is what NFP has done for them, then that doesn’t say much for NFP as an instrument of marital bliss. Happy people don’t usually need to run around slamming other people’s marriages based on assumed information and then go gossiping it to their blog friends.
Ugh. What a group of nasty, dirty-minded people they are.
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