"NYC Valentine's Day Condom Distribution Draws Bishops' Ire
(RNS) New York City Catholic leaders are criticizing the city health department's Valentine's Day distribution of condoms, saying it degrades society."
Can someone tell me what this is supposed to mean? I, for one, don't get it. I don't understand the mainstream Catholic contraception-logic. Perhaps I'm due for an enlightenment of sorts. Don't get me wrong, that's not to say that I advocate abortion rites. We'll just say that. Instead, let's talk intercourse-related, preventative contraception for a moment. What, if anything, is degrading about the use of condoms for safe-sex purposes? Shall we examine the situation? When people's lives are being torn apart by HIV, other costly STD's, and pre-mature motherhood, one might think that we would make an effort to prevent tragedies such as this, you know, to treat human needs. With that said, there should be nothing degrading about passing out condoms and encouraging their use, and no one ought to feel shame.
Don't tell me that abstinance is the answer either. That's an even more short-sighted, moronic idea. Telling a young person to avoid exploring their sexuality is sort of like telling a fire not to burn. Sex is the most human thing in the world, and to expect human beings to stop (on Valentine's Day of all days) is not only highly mislead but a waste of time, energy, and breath. The guilt-ridden population of Catholic youth hangs in an awkward tension, i.e. the pro-abstinence stance coupled with the anti-contraception stance. I've heard the story plenty of times. People sleep with one another, as lovers are like to do, and one, the other, or both end up rejecting the application of even a single condom. The dilemma is an insoluable one, which has met the ruin of many young girl's (guys too, mostly girls though) lives.
The idea, too, of supporting contraception as a lesser evil is also mislead. The line of reasoning that says abstinance is the highest road, but we'll decide, since it is very difficult to achieve and in order that we might prevent the most damage, to settle on a condom campaign. The issue is not a calculation or a half-assed rationale of settling.
Some would object, then, saying that all forms of contraception which are not based around the woman's cycle are 'artificial,' so the use of such methods is unethical. While that sort of reasoning seems at first air-tight, we preform many other procedures in the medical world on a daily basis which are 'artificial,' e.g. surgery (tell me that slicing a person open is natural in the slightest) or medication, and do not even bat an eye. Thus, to claim that artificial is equivalent to unethical is just false.
I mean, let's get down to business here. Let's talk real issues. Most of Catholic sexual ethics is stuck in the 13th Century with Thomas Aquinas. It wouldn't take a Saint to tell you that things have changed in the past few centuries. For instance, we know now that masturbation is not murder, we know now that a woman's cycle does not imply that they are evil and have mysterious powers which we must control. We need new answers to this and many other problems. The answers we're getting are filled with nothing but the same old jargon, hidden behind different masks. I'm not sure what it might be worth, but my advice to Pastors, scholars, theologians, etc. who espouse this type of mentality. Step for a moment out of your library and into the world. See how effective you are at preaching according to Aquinas' understanding of sexuality and then observe human life, see the world with new eyes.
For those not convinced about the unintelligability of Aquinas on this issue, find out for yourself. Here's a prime example. This is an excerpt from a book that one of my Professors at the Gregorian wrote using Thomastic language and reasoning. Go ahead, see how much sense this makes to a person of the 21st century, to contemporary society, to a teenager. It's non-sensical dribble.
"The use of contraceptive methods is illicit because in voluntarily disjointing the unitive aspect from the procreative aspect, it contradicts the intrinsic nature of human sexuality. Therefore every action which, either before or after the conjugal act, or in the development of its natural concequences, proposes itself as an aim or as a means, to impede precreation is illicit. The conjugal union has two dimensions unitive and procreative. To separate these two dimensions would mean to prejudge the intimate truth of sexuality. Responsible procreation consists precisely in assuming sexuality in all of its truth. It is in such a way that, before choosing whether to have or to overtake or to avoid conception, the couple will be able to decide whether to preform the conjugal act in the moments in which it is possible, or else a conception, without which this alters the objective truth of the act. Under this acception, it is not on the other hand responible to manipulate the conjugal act in a way that expresses the one psychologico-affective dimension and not the procreative dimension because the person is a unity, a totality."
-Ramon Lucas Lucas, Bioetica per tutti
Please, any thoughts are welcomed.
