Over on his blog, Steve Kellmeyer has a post in which he argues against the claim that recent Magisterial documents using the phrase “conjugal act” are only addressing the use of contraception within marriage. He argues that the phrase “conjugal act” is to be given a broader meaning.
I appreciate the polite tone that Kellmeyer uses (for he is taking me to task here), and I hope to respond in the same way.
I am sympathetic to the desire to find in recent Magisterial statements a ban on contraception regardless of the circumstances. Indeed, I used to hold that this is what the documents said (in part because I was using faulty translations that rendered “coniugale commercium” as “sexual act” rather than “marital act” or, even more literally, “marital congress” or “marital intercourse”).
Over time, and in consultation with various Latin experts and experts in moral theology, I came to realize that this view is incorrect and that in its recent statements the Magisterium has limited itself to treating the use of contraception within marriage.
In the future it may deal with extramarital situations, but we will have to wait to see what it says. It may say that the same principles apply to extramarital sexual acts or it may not. We will have to see.
In his piece, Kellmeyer acknowledges that
[I]t is true that the 20th century Magisterial pronouncements on contraception all discuss the “conjugal act,”
but argues that
it is NOT the case that this phrasing is only meant to reference the sexual act within marriage.
He proposes several arguments for this, but his basic argument is this:
For precedence, we have the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, who clearly forbid the use of contraceptives regardless of the marital state of the participants.
A bit later on he summarizes his basic argument this way:
In order to reconcile the writings of the Fathers with the Magisterial documents which base themselves on the Fathers, we must assume that “conjugal act” does not strictly confine itself to meaning “the sexual act that takes place within marriage”, rather, it must mean “the sexual act that is supposed to take place within marriage (but often does not)”.
For this argument to be sound one would have to show that the phrase “coniugale commercium” (translated in whatever language the Fathers and Doctors were writing in) was used to refer to sexual intercourse without reference to whether it was occurring in marriage.
This would indeed set a precedent for taking the phrase “coniugale commercium” in something other than its obvious, literal sense. If a substantial series of quotations of this nature could be produced (not just one or two here or there, which would be insufficient to show an established usage) then it would show an established prior usage that was broader in semantic range.
Unfortunately, none of the writings that Kellmeyer cites (many of which were drawn from a Fathers Know Best column that I composed) do this.
It may very well be the case that there is an established tradition of condemning contraception both in and outside of marriage, but that does not tell us what the phrase “coniugale commercium” means. The existence of a broad theme does not tell us the meaning of a specific phrase used to express aspects of that theme in a Magisterial document.
Structurally, the argument seems to be something like:
- 20th century Magisterial documents use the phrase “coniugale commercium” while condemning contraception.
- The passages in these documents that use the phrase “coniugale commercium” must express the totality of any prior Catholic tradition concerning contraception.
- There is a prior Catholic tradition that condemns contraception both in an outside of marriage.
- Therefore, by using the phrase “coniugale commercium,” 20th century Magisterial documents are condemning contraception both in and outside of marriage.
This argument does not work because the middle premise (line 2) is false. It is not the case that the totality of a prior, broader theme must be what Paul VI is referring to when he uses this phrase.
To the contrary, one cannot take passages from hundreds of years ago that, although on the same general topic, do not use the same language, and insist that they inform the meaning of a single and different phrase in a modern document, contrary to its obvious literal meaning.
I believe firmly in a hermeneutic of continuity, and thus one cannot dismiss a prior, broader tradition as being irrelevant to the modern treatment of contraception. But saying something is relevant to the modern discussion of a broad moral topic is not the same as saying that it must be what was meant by one particular phrase that has an obvious, contrary meaning.
Make no mistake; Latin has a word for “sexual” (i.e., sexualis). If Paul VI had wanted to say “sexual intercourse” in Humanae Vitae then he would have said sexuale commercium.
In fact, he wouldn’t have even needed to say that because the word commercium itself–in context of a sexual discussion–means ”intercourse.” (In broader discussions it can refer to non-sexual exchanges, such as social intercourse or business intercourse, but the context tells us that this is the sexual usage.)
What “coniugale” does is specify the kind of intercourse. Not sexual intercourse in general, but specifically marital intercourse: intercourse in marriage.
This is indicated both by the immediate context of the document itself and by the historical context in which the document arose.
Humanae Vitae is not a general meditation on the subject of contraception–the kind of document that might address both marital and extra-marital sex (as with a manual of moral theology). It is specifically a document intended to offer guidance to married couples. This is established as its subject matter from its opening sentences:
The transmission of human life is a most serious role in which married people collaborate freely and responsibly with God the Creator. It has always been a source of great joy to them, even though it sometimes entails many difficulties and hardships.
The fulfillment of this duty has always posed problems to the conscience of married people, but the recent course of human society and the concomitant changes have provoked new questions. The Church cannot ignore these questions, for they concern matters intimately connected with the life and happiness of human beings.
So the purpose of the document is to answer the “new questions” (created by modern socio-economic factors and the new methods of birth control that had been developed–especially the Pill, which did not seem to violate the physical structure of the marital act, the way condoms do) that Humanae Vitae sets out to answer so that married couples may know how to properly live out their vocation.
And the document did not come out of a vacuum. It was the Pope’s 1968 response to the disastrous 1967 report that had been authored (and then leaked to the press) by the Pontificial Commission on Population, Family, and Birth, which had endorsed contraception between married couples.
The Pontificial Commission had been set up during the reign of John XXIII to deal with an upcoming United Nations population conference, but he died before it met. When Paul VI was elected, he expanded and reworked its membership and mission, tasking it in 1964 with answering three questions:
What is the relationship between the primary and secondary ends of marriage? What are the major responsibilities of married couples? How do rhythm [i.e., the rhythm method] and the pill relate to responsible parenthood? [SOURCE].
The Pontifical Commission was not tasked with writing a general moral treatment of human sexuality. It was tasked specifically with analyzing the situation of married couples and their use of contraception in “responsible [and thus marital] parenthood.”
The Commission accordingly crafted a report which, while it was pro-contraception, was focused on the use of contraception by married couples. It is not a general treatise on human sexuality. (READ IT HERE.)
When the Commission’s pro-contraception report was leaked to the press it caused an enormous raising of expectations that the Pope would approve the Pill, and to combat this Paul VI wrote his final encyclical, which was released the next year. Humanae Vitae is his public response to the Commission’s report and his effort to deal–as he says–with the new questions that married couples face.
When he then uses the Latin words meaning ”marital intercourse,” we must recognize that this is exactly what he is talking about.
While I as much as anybody would love for Humanae Vitae to settle all questions on the topic of human sexuality, the fact is that it is a document of deliberately limited scope and that its key passage is focused on the use of contraception in relation to marital intercourse.
It is not possible to shoehorn other elements of prior Catholic thought into this passage because this would violate its clear language and force it to answer questions that it is not attempting to address.
As is often the case with the Magisterium, it moves slowly and in a step-wise manner. It doesn’t tend to take on questions without strong reason. The Church already taught that sex outside of marriage is gravely sinful. The mid 20th century had brought about new socio-economic and technological factors that impinged on the question of sexuality within marriage, and this is what both the Pontifical Commission and Humanae Vitae expressly set out to address.
Rather than being a summation of the whole of Catholic thought on sexuality, Humanae Vitae is a document with a sharply limited scope intended to provide moral and pastoral guidance to married couples facing the challenges of the modern world.
There is a lot more that could be said about this (particularly regarding some of the sources Kellmeyer cites), but I hope this provides a basic response to his central argument.
I am also happy to note that he concludes by stating:
So, is the Holy Father’s private theological opinion correct? Is it the case that the use of the condom with the intent to reduce disease transmission less damnable than using the condom without that intention? Probably. Aquinas, whose love for such fine distinctions is precisely what makes him the greatest doctor of the Church, would almost certainly agree that it was.
And that is heartening.
Indeed it is.
