Are condoms always contraceptive? Father Rhonheimer gets creative

Christopher Blosser has an excellent round-up of the debate going on in Catholic circles triggered by His Holiness’ recent remarks on the use of condoms by gay prostitutes to prevent disease.  Swiss theologian Father Martin Rhonheimer has taken advantage of the pope’s unfortunate statements to claim official support for his own speculations–namely, that the prophylactic use of condoms (i.e. to present disease transmission) is not contraceptive at all.

According to Catholic moral theology, as articulated by Aquinas and others, the morality of an act depends on three things:  the agent’s intention (does he mean to do good or evil?), the circumstances (are there foreseeable side effects that would outweigh the good intention?)  and the object (the nature of the act itself; is it intrinsically evil?).  For an act to be moral, it must pass all three tests.  Catholic doctrine infallibly states (and natural law confirms) that contraception–the deliberate frustration of the conjugal act’s generative end–is intrinsically evil.  It would seem, therefore, that one should not engage in contraceptive acts even if one’s purpose is to prevent infecting a spouse, rather than to prevent a conception.  Father Rhonheimer disagrees.  He claims that an act of intercourse with a condom is not a contraceptive act at all unless it is intended as such.  Therefore, prophylactic condom use does not fall under the Church’s ban on contraception, although it may (or may not) still be immoral for other reasons.  Father Rhonheimer also uses his unique understanding of “object” to engage in other flights of fancy.  For example, what any of us would call “masturbation” isn’t so if it’s done to extract semen for infertility testing.

Professors Janet Smith and Stephen Long (see articles in the attached round-up) have pointed out the obvious problems with Rhonheimer’s thinking.  It eviscerates Catholic moral theology by reducing “object” to a restatement of “intention”.  Catholic moral theology is reduced to intentionalism, there are no intrinsically good or evil acts, and anything can be justified by good intentions.  As Long puts it

Of course, this is intentionalism. It is to argue that because one intends prophylaxis, therefore such condom use is not contraceptive. This is precisely the effort to define “direct” and “indirect” with respect to moral action by reference solely to intention while excluding essential reference to the nature of that which is chosen. Yet the putatively good effect achieved through condom use–that of preventing dissemination of disease–is in heterosexual intercourse achieved only by means of the evil effect of a contraceptive blocking of the transmission of procreative matter. Fr. Rhonheimer does not wish to call this “contraception” because for him, not the nature of the act, but rather, exclusively the intention of the agent, determines whether contraception occurs. The integral nature and per se effects of one’s chosen action are thus not held to be imputable to one, but only one’s “intention”. The knight, wiping the blood off his sword, says: “I didn’t really kill a child–I merely helped to prevent dynastic civil war”. Of course, the dead regal child is not by this fact resurrected.

Father Rhonheimer replies to Janet Smith in Our Sunday Visitor.  Tellingly, he makes no attempt to answer her substantiative, philosophical points.  Instead, he starts out by accusing her of libel.  He goes on for some time bitching in a most unmanly way about his wounded reputation.  Then he appeals to his authority as an author of books on moral theology, claiming to be outraged that anyone would accuse an expert like him of an error like intentionalism.  Again, he says nothing substantial to rebut the charge–his thought is so subtle that it can’t be explained in a magazine article on the subject.  Finally, he appeals negatively to the authority of the Church.  He has not yet been condemned; therefore, his writings are consistent with orthodoxy!

Rhonheimer’s piss-poor self-defense has convinced me even more than the reasoning of his accusers.  This man’s books should be condemned.  He should be given the choice of recanting or being charged with heresy.  Not the first time the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has been asleep at the wheel, I’m afraid.