I take it for granted that you have heard about the Pope’s remarks about condoms in an interview that was part of a book. In the event that you have not yet seen an informed Catholic response to all the fuss being made about those remarks, be assured that what Pope Benedict XVI said about those things has absolutely nothing to do with Catholic teaching about birth control.
The focus of Catholic teaching in Casti Connubii and Humanae Vitae is against contraceptive behaviors because they morally disfigure the marriage act. Catholic teaching condemns the use of condoms as a method of contraception, that is, a behavior designed to prevent conception and thus designed to contradict the built-in for-better-and-for-worse meaning of the marriage act.
The Pope’s example of a homosexual prostitute using condoms illustrates a key difference between homosexual sodomy and the heterosexual marriage act. First of all, homosexual sodomy is not and never can be a marriage act. Secondly, the purpose and the effect of condoms used in the copulation of homosexual sodomists is not contraception because conception is impossible between two sodomists. In fact, it is only in the case of homosexual sodomy that condoms act exclusively as non-contraceptive agents of disease limitation.
The Pope has not given a back-door rationalization for heterosexual couples to use condoms as agents of disease limitation. In all heterosexual cases, the use of condoms to reduce the spread of a disease is a contraceptive act because it seeks to prevent the transmission of semen. It should also be noted that while any use of condoms may slow down the spread of a sexually transmitted disease, it does not truly prevent its transmission and spread. Only abstinence has that blessed effect.
The papal remarks have been interpreted by some as permission for heterosexuals to use condoms if they have the good intention of disease prevention or slowing its spread. Not so. A good intention does not make a bad act good. (On the other hand, a bad intention can make an otherwise good act bad.)
Unfortunately, the Pope missed an opportunity to teach the evil of sodomy. It might have been instructive if he had replied in this vein: “You are asking about sodomy, an act that is the grave matter of mortal sin by which the agents put themselves on the road to hell. You are asking if the use of a condom in homosexual sodomy adds a second mortal sin. Well, as you know, Catholic teaching condemns the use of contraceptive behaviors, but sodomy can be described as already an essentially non-conceptive or contraceptive behavior, so a condom does not make it even more contraceptive. Therefore, if the use of a condom by sodomists adds a second mortal sin to the already sinful act, it would be for other reasons such as scandal or greater frequency. Etc.”
The only real lesson from this episode is that Pope Benedict may need to be more prudent when he is speaking with journalists about issues that are so open to misinterpretation. He is a great writer, and I wish he would write an encyclical commemorating Casti Connubii which will be 80 years young and still tremendously relevant on December 31, 2010.
John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality
Ignatius 2005