Mark P. Shea's Blog, page 1413

Little Systems of Order

In which we discover the relationship of the reading on Sunday to just about everything.

The Industrious Tito Edwards writes...

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Julian Assange and Lucius Malfoy

Separated at birth?

Almost right

A reader writes concerning the whole condom kerfuffle:

Does it really matter if the sex is homosexual or heterosexual? Sex belongs only in a context of free, fruitful, faithful, and permanent committment. Promiscuous sex, whether hetero or homo, already destroys the meaning of the sexual act. The sex is already outside it's proper context; the condom is not rendering a good thing bad, as in marriage. It is simply part and parcel of the larger sin.

It seems to me that the pope is saying that outside of marriage, condoms are not evil or encouraged, but rather irrelevant. They are irrelevant from a global health perspective because they do not provide a long-term solution to the AIDS pandemic (" not a real, moral, solution) They are marginally relevant from a moral perspective because they are an accessory to a sinful choice and lifestyle. The heart of the sin is the decision to separate sex from the context of marriage.

The media (and some conservatives have bought into this) has always made it sound like the Pope is telling young Africans "Have all the sex with anyone you want, just DON'T use a condom." . Instead, he simply has refused to compromise with human souls; he bypasses condom distribution as a distraction, and calls us to work for the true human flourishing that only an ordered sexuality can give.

I think this is what the Media finds so infuriating. Not even to be given even the dignity of jeremiads and righteous indignation, but to be calmly told that their pet salvation is simply an irrelevant distraction to soothe the consciences of the short-sighted.

I think with this understanding of the Pope's stand on the use of condoms to fight AIDS, his comments are completely consistent both with Church Teaching and his previous comments. One of the things I really love about Pope Benedict (however much trouble it causes) is that he says exactly what he thinks, lovingly, and doesn't particularly give a damn what you think of him.

I think you are basically on the right track. The only place I think you drop the ball (and I doubt you meant to do so) is that your present formulation *could* be read to mean "So long as you are married, it doesn't matter if the marriage is heterosexual or homosexual". I strongly suspect you weren't aiming to say that (since you speak of "fruitful" sex). But I point it out for clarity's sake. As to the rest, yeah, I continue to think the Pope was speaking simple common sense and that the whole media kerfuffle is a product of unimagination.

Can a Condom Be Therapeutic?

A reader asks:

I enjoy reading your blog a lot and wanted to get your take on a spin-off issue from the pope's recent condom comments. Namely can the use of a condom by a married couple ever be considered "therapeutic" if one of them has AIDS or some other STD? This wasn't addressed in the pope's comment, but I think it's something that needs an answer from the Church especially when one considers the situation in Africa where AIDS is widespread.

In Humanae Vitae, there is a section entitled "Lawful Therapeutic Means". It states:

"On the other hand, the Church does not consider at all illicit the use of those therapeutic means necessary to cure bodily diseases, even if a foreseeable impediment to procreation should result there from—provided such impediment is not directly intended for any motive whatsoever."

What this paragraph is getting at is the principle of double effect. An example would be a woman who has to have a hysterectomy because of cancer. The surgery has two effects, the removal of the cancer and infertility. The primary intent was the removal of the cancer. The infertility was an unavoidable side effect. Another example would be a surgery to remove a fallopian tube because of an ectopic pregnancy. Unlike an abortion in which the intended result is a dead child, the death of the pre-natal child in a surgery to correct an ectopic pregnancy is an unavoidable side effect.

My question is do you think the use of a condom by a married couple where one of them has AIDS or some other STD also meets the criteria of "therapeutic" in Humanae Vitae? Can a condom be used by the married couple if the primary intent is to prevent the spread of the disease and the infertility that results is a unintended side effect? It seems there are only two options. Either the Church says it's considered therapeutic, or the Church says it's not and the married couple must live a life of continence. I'll go with whatever the Church says, but I think this is something the Church needs to address.

This is the sort of question where you want somebody with actual training in moral theology and not some blogger with a loud mouth who just says the first thing that pops into his head. There are some things that cyberspace is good for. Getting a sober answer to a question like this is not one of them. I would *strongly* urge you to take this one to a well-trained priest, confessor, or moral theologian. Anything I say will only muddy the waters. That also goes for anything anybody in the combox says. Save yourself while you still can!

509 Followers!

Dear shuffling lackeys and lickspittles:

Now that Angeles Duran owns the sun and is charging for its use, I command you all to join me in a class action suit on behalf of anyone who has suffered sunburn, heat stroke, skin cancer, climate change, or any other form sun-related injury. The owner of the Sun should also be held liable for failure to provide an instruction manual. If people cannot be expected to know how to use shampoo without instructions, how can they be expected to not radically misuse a 4.5 billion year old fusion reactor that makes the earth look like a blue BB? As your Dark Lord and the Entity of Evil who has your back, I think it only fair that, until my breeding program completes its plans for a race of Uruk-Hai who can move at speed in sunlight, I do what I can to squelch this public menace and shroud all the lands in a second darkness.

In conclusion, I give you this to think about:



That is all!

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20 Obsolete Words that Should be Revived

I love stuff like this. I think John C. Wright needs to set himself the task of writing a story that incorporates every one of these words into it.

I am particularly gratified, as the International Founder of the Jolly Pride Movement, by #7.

Speaking of the Boy Who Cried "Terror!"

The Obama Administration has turned the full might of its terror-fighting fury against the real threat to our great Republic: internet copyright infringement.


It used to be that everyone was going to be famous for fifteen minutes. Then everybody was Hitler for fifteen minutes. Now everybody is a terrorist for 15 minutes. Did you download that Beatles tune from one of the Seized Sites? You are an accomplice to TERROR!

We are now living in the time when everything the State wants to do is justified as "anti-terror" or "green". I reckon that soon we will see some attempts to amalgamate the two into a sort of Green Security State that will attempt to appeal to both Left and Right as it continues to seek a monopoly on power.

Minor historical footnotes that tell me a lot...

such as the fact that the Wikileaks dump shows the US was blindsided by the election of Ratzinger.

A state department that clueless does not bode well for knowing what's going on in other departments of foreign affairs.

As to the rest of the dump, who knows? All these insta-responses to 250,000 pages of gossip and diplomatic cattiness are being screamed about as "treason" but until I'm shown that somebody's life is endangered and it isn't just embarrassed politicians like Hillary and Obama angry over being made to look stupid and venal, I'm loathe to buy the "this is terrorism!" line.

The thing is: every time some state actor wants to take away your rights, put his hands down your pants, or scare you into obeying him, he shouts "terrorism!" Wikileaks has, in the past, recklessly endangered people in the field by not even bothering to blot out names before their data dumps. But when Hillary orders her staff to snoop into some diplomat's sky miles account or a functionary says something catty about Karzai, I don't think anybody's life is in danger.

And when Israel and Saudi Arabia are urging us to attack Iran, I like to know about that. I have this notion that a free self-governing people should have some say about whether our sons and daughters should be sent, yet again, to go die because some foreign power is telling our leaders what to do instead of doing it themselves if they think it so bloody important. I figure if we don't have a clue that Ratzinger is the obvious successor to JPII, we might also be flying blind if we obey the pressure from Israel and Saudi Arabia and launch yet another war against Iran with... unexpected results.