Sexual Sterilization
Sexual sterilization is a highly used form of birth control by Catholics. Data from the NIH-sponsored Family Growth Survey in 2002 indicate that female sterilization is only slightly less for Catholics than for the country as a whole, and male Catholics choose sterilization even more frequently than non-Catholic men. The survey also indicated that only about 3% of Catholics and other Christians practiced any form of natural family planning.
Of course, some will say that those numbers apply only to the non-practicing Catholics who don’t go to Church anyway. On the contrary, just last month, a correspondent told me about a deacon friend of his. In that deacon’s ordination class of 12, he was the only one who was not sterilized.
Humanae Vitae clearly teaches that it is morally wrong both to have oneself sexually sterilized and to engage in contraceptively sterilized intercourse. After absolutely excluding abortion as a means of birth control, Pope Paul VI continued: “Equally to be excluded, as the teaching authority of the Church has frequently declared, is direct sterilization, whether perpetual or temporary, whether of the man or of the woman” (n.14).
The pastoral problem is twofold. First, there is the question about the personal holiness or sinfulness of the sterilized person who continues to engage in marital relations during the fertile time. That constitutes engaging in sterilized intercourse in contradiction to the teaching of Humanae Vitae. The second problem has to do with the role of contracepting and sterilized persons in the various ministries of the Church including those at the parish level. Let’s put it this way. People who are engaging in contraceptively sterilized intercourse, whether that sterilization is temporary as with the use of condoms or the pill, or permanent, are acting in living contradiction of Catholic teaching. Do they really believe the teaching of the Church? If they say they do believe but are acting in contradiction to that teaching, they have a serious problem. If they say they simply do not believe the teaching of the Church when it comes to love, marriage and birth control, the rest of us have a serious problem. How can they be expected to transmit the faith that the Catholic Church is the one true and infallible Church? Instead, their very presence in the public ministries of the Church helps to perpetuate the notion of a cultural non-doctrinal or pick-and-choose Catholicism.
I think that an important aspect of authentic renewal in the Church is going to be the realization at the practical level that the Church is a faith community in which its members should be able to safely assume that its representatives believe and practice what the Church actually teaches. Currently, we have no assurance whatsoever that those who volunteer as lectors or Holy Communion distributors are believing and practicing Catholics. It is very possible that the fertile-age woman who is distributing the Body of Christ may be at that very moment aborting a new life within her through the action of her hormonal birth control. It is all too possible that Catholic grade and high school teachers are teaching a cafeteria pseudo-Catholicism especially regarding sexuality and the teaching authority of the Church.
We have had forty years of this sort of Church under the Babylonian captivity of the dissenters. Too much is more than enough.
Tomorrow: The Repentant Sterilized Couple
John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality
This is so upsetting I don’t know where to start.
First a man does something morally wrong by having himself sterilized and then engages in marital relations during his wife’s fertile time, thus engaging in sterilized intercourse. Might I point out that many men have their sperm “banked” before proceeding to have a vasectomy? They can either produce this specimen for “banking” in the Clinic, masturbating while watching a pornographic film, or if they are unable to do this, they can purchase a “special condom” to use at home in order to produce a specimen. So, these men, in addition to sinning by having a vasectomy, (disobeying Church teaching regarding this), and then subsequently engaging in contraceptively sterilized intercourse, also add to their sin by producing sperm for “banking” prior to their vasectomy, by masturbating while watching OTHER women (on film) to arouse themselves. If 11 deacons out of a class of 12 were sterilized how many banked their sperm? Multiply this by, how many Catholic men who have had a vasectomy, and out of these men, how many of these men may have “banked” their sperm? Only God knows!
The second part of this pastoral problem that you mentioned is these persons in parish ministries. Indeed, if they do not believe the Church teaching regarding “love, marriage and birth control”, then how CAN they transmit the faith that the Roman Catholic Church is the one true, holy, and apostolic Church? If deacons, teachers etc. do not believe this, then what ARE they teaching our young Catholic people and sincere enquirers? How can they counsel the young and not-so-young in their difficulties with chastity, marriage, and faithfulness to their spouses and God? If they don’t believe these teachings of the Church regarding contraception, marriage, and chastity, what else do they not believe in the Church? Why do they remain in the Catholic Church and do harm? I recall reading an article years and years ago in which the author wrote words along the lines that if we took all the theologians who led Catholics astray by their erroneous and rebellious theories and teachings, they would fit into a phone booth, but if you took the persons who influenced Catholics to leave the Church to join fundamentalist churches, you would need a football field to fit them in (if memory serves me correctly, the comparison the author was making was along these lines). So, now to my mind, we have the third group leading Catholics astray: wolves in sheep’s clothing who remain and set a poor example of authentic Catholic Christian living, and teaching, as you phrase it so very well, “a cafeteria pseudo-Catholicism especially regarding sexuality and the teaching authority of the Church.” What harm this does for years to come!
So, I attend Mass and although I pray as I line up to receive the Eucharist, I am also aware that many, many people lining up do NOT believe in the Real Presence, as a Priest once said during a Homily (this holy Priest most certainly did believe in the Real Presence). Now, I am cognizant of the fact that perhaps the Deacon or Eucharistic Minister has disregarded authentic Church teaching and has been sterilized. To me, this raises a “flag” that this person may disregard other Catholic beliefs also, and this always strikes me as a sign of rebellion and pride – pride that they know better than the teaching authority of the Magisterium. No, we have no reassurances that Eucharistic Ministers, lectors, teachers, or anyone involved in Parish ministries are practicing and believing Roman Catholics.
Yes, we’ve had liturgical renewal and the so-called “Charismatic Renewal”; Parish Councils; seminars for the laity, etc. etc., but now after reading and pondering what you have written regarding authentic renewal in the Church, I would have to say that it can’t be put any better than the way you have written it, and here again, I must quote you in this weeks blog: “I think that an important aspect of authentic renewal in the Church is going to be the realization at the practical level that the Church is a faith community in which its members should be able to safely assume that its representatives believe and practice what the Church actually teaches.” Thank you, John, for writing on this and I pray that those reading would also deeply reflect on what you’ve written, pray about it, and share with others.