From the Comment Box: More on Condoms and Aids

On April 27, one of our dear friends stated, in part, in response to this post:

...In other words, the Vatican has an opportunity to be dead wrong --- again --- or display the common sense shown by Jesus while walking among the people. Nothing more. Nothing less. In the final analysis.

Which got me to thinking (kind of) and responding:

Dead Wrong? On matters of Faith and Morals? If this is one's position, then he has abandoned the Catholic faith, he has has rejected a fundamental tenet of the faith, and he has ceased to be Catholic.

Your position is the same as that of a number of heretics, schismatics, and apostates of previous generations. Nothing more, nothing less.

The Church's teaching on the grave immorality of contraception goes back to the time of the Apostles and has been affirmed throughout the Church's history...It can never change. It must be remembered that one may NEVER do evil in order that good may result...NEVER!

Pope Pius XI, in Casti Connubii, stated:

But no reason, however grave, may be put forward by which anything intrinsically against nature may become conformable to nature and morally good. Since, therefore, the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it, deliberately frustrating its natural power and purpose, sin against nature and commit a deed which is disgraceful and intrinsically vicious ... any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin. (Section 4, Paragraph 4).

Pope Pius XII stated, as recorded in Acta Apostilicae Sedis, XLIII (1951), page 843:

...no 'indication' or need can convert an act which is intrinsically immoral into a moral and lawful one ... This precept is in force today, as it was in the past, and so it will be in the future also, and always, because it is not a simple human whim, but the expression of a natural and divine law.

A similar situation may be deemed to exist in cases where bringing a pregnancy to term can result in grave or deadly consequences for the wife. Pope Pius XII, in an address he gave to the Catholic Union of Midwives in 1951, stated:
"There are serious motives, such as those arising from what are termed medical, eugenic, economic and social 'indications,' that can exempt for a long time, perhaps even the whole duration of the marriage, from the positive and obligatory carrying out of the act."

In certain situations, then, a couple should consider complete abstinence. Those who think this is unnatural, may be unaware of the grace God provides for those who are plagued by such circumstances.

Those who happen to be in irregular marriages, who wish to follow Christ and His Church, and who wish to receive Holy Communion while they make efforts to regularize their marriage live as "brother and sister", forego sexual relations until such time as they become united in Holy Matrimony. This effort is undertaken with the graces God provides in order that they may live according to His plan. We can see that it is entirely possible.

And back to the issue at hand: This is to say nothing of the fact that use of condoms, indeed any form of artificial contraception, results not in a loving, unitive act open to procreation but in an act of mutual masterbation, which is also gravely sinful.