LETTERS
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ROAMIN' CATHOLIC
Contents © 2006
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
LETTERS
September/October 2006
DOUBLE EFFECT
Regarding double effect, the theology of the L.A. Times, sadly, was clearer than your own. [See "News," June Mission.]
If a married couple were to use a condom as a prophylactic against disease, they would not be intending it as a prophylactic against conception, though it would also have that effect. Therefore, they would be using birth control only as a secondary effect. The primary effect would be the prevention of disease.
Therefore, there is no assertion that birth control is morally good, as you suggested. The moral evil of birth control is tolerated as a secondary effect of the good of disease prevention -- both of which are accomplished by the condom but only one of which is intended. This is roughly the same as the double effect that takes place when a woman has cancerous ovaries removed. She is not intending sterilization, which is a moral evil. She is intending to fight the disease of cancer.
August Tican,
San Diego
Editor replies: Human acts do not derive their character simply from the intention of those engaged in them. The removal of cancerous ovaries is not an act of sterilization, not just because the doctor or the patient does not intend to sterilize, but because of the circumstances in which the act is carried out and its intrinsic purpose. Removing cancerous ovaries is an act of disease eradication; it is really irrelevant whether the cancerous organ is an ovary or something else. The defining purpose is to remove a cancer; and, if in the process of removing the cancer, one sterilizes the patient, this is secondary or accidental to the character of the act in which one is engaged. If the primary purpose of the act were sterilization, then it would not be irrelevant that the organ is an ovary. For one does not sterilize by removing gall bladders.
The fundamental character of sexual intercourse with a condom is contraceptive sex. Or, in other words, it is sexual intercourse devoid of its primary and defining purpose -- procreation. It is sexual intercourse gutted of its reason for being. Perhaps another way of expressing it is this: if one engages in sexual intercourse, he must do so for the purpose for which sexual intercourse was made. If he hinders this purpose, he violates the very meaning of sexual intercourse.
If condoms prevent disease, they do so only secondarily; they do so by hindering the sperm from reaching the ova; they do so by frustrating the central and defining purpose of penile ejaculation, which is a delivery system to carry the sperm to the ovum not to introduce a disease to another host. Granted, there are other good reasons to engage in sexual intercourse other than procreation -- for instance, to foster love between spouses or as a cure to concupiscence. But these are secondary ends, which, as secondary, cannot be separated from the primary end of procreation. They foster the unity that is necessary to render the couple fit parents of offspring. The sexual act is first and foremost a procreative act, which anyone must admit if he thinks long enough about it. To hinder its procreative character is to rob it of its essence. It is to make it something other than what it is intended to be.
Of course, one might argue that since every sexual act does not result in a conception, every sexual act is not essentially procreative. But that is like saying oak trees do not shed their acorns to produce other oak trees because every acorn does not fall on ground that is sufficiently fertile or watered. A deficiency that arises from circumstances does not change the character of the act but only hinders the act from fulfilling what it is intended to do. The act still remains what it is.
TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT
All the goings-on at St. Mary's-by-the-Sea in Huntington Beach sound to me like a tempest in a teapot. [See, "Canonically, It's Gobbledygook," May Mission.]
It is not a question of whether to kneel after the Lamb of God, but whether to kneel before the Lamb of God. It has always been my instinct -- when the priest holds up the consecrated host and says, "this is the Lamb of God...." -- to kneel before Jesus, present and elevated before us by the celebrant in the Blessed Sacrament. I do follow my instinct and kneel if it is not altogether awkward to do so.
When I sing with my choir, we are positioned beside the altar at the front of the church, and the drill at that church is to remain standing after the Lord's Prayer. So, I remain standing and bow my head when the celebrant lifts up the consecrated host.
The reality is that some people will kneel as the Spirit moves them after the recitation of the "Lamb of God," even in churches where the drill is to stand. For a pastor to ask members of a congregation to leave over something like this sounds more like something that might happen in a Protestant church than at a Catholic parish.
It stands to reason that folks who have been accustomed to doing something a certain way for a long time will take umbrage at being forbidden from continuing to do so. That pastor and that bishop need training in group dynamics.
Lila Cuajunco,
Torrance
FIGHT FOR CHRIST THE KING!
I have been reading the "Roamin' Catholic" columns on your web site for two years now and really cannot find any object to them. They regularly report on the most abysmal goings on in Cardinal Mahony's jurisdiction without a single indication that the writer disagrees with the puerile new "liturgy," horrible vandalization of churches built with the pennies of the poor, crass stupidity, and vile sacrileges the articles describe.
True Catholics see souls going to hell in the thousands as a result of these abominations. We are obliged in charity to do something, not just smile at the idiots as they parade. I was given to understand the author, Mr. Coulombe, is "traditional." If that is the case, come "out," denounce the horrors you so regularly report. Mahony will likely never change. Tell people to get out of his sect. Let them go back to the Catholic faith. There are a few Catholic churches left within the area insulted by his presence Tell people to go to them. Souls are being lost!
Forget about being honored by the Pharisees. Fight for Christ the King! I am most certainly amongst the least to advise, but every time I see another "unbiased" report, my blood boils.
Father T.A.H.
WHOSE ENGLISH ANYHOW?
Overall, Don Gueranger offered a reasonable and useful report of the "new translation" of the liturgy. [See "Dew Still Exists," July/August Mission.] Two items in his account should be brought to your attention. First, is the cheap shot with which he concludes the article. This was entirely unworthy of the article, not to speak of the Mission.
Secondly, the entirely overlooked item is that Bishop Roche "called on the U.S. bishops to take the lead in approving the new translation." Think about this for a moment. The bishop is an Englishman, the chair of the committee on translation. And he is calling on U.S. bishops to take the lead? What is wrong with calling on his own English bishops to take the lead? Or the Welsh bishops? Or the Scottish bishops? Sounds to me that he wants the American bishops to be the fall guys when English speaking Catholics rise to condemn those who recommended the translation.
May we not also wonder if the translation is "American" English, or "English" English, or "Australian" English, or "Irish" English (if that is possible), or "Canadian" English? Whose "English" is Rome pushing? How many votes did the several "English" language groups have in the final product?
B. Hughes, received via e-mail
IT WAS HER LACK OF FAITH
Regarding the new requirement that homosexuality be included in profiles of historical figures in California schools, the news blurb in the July/August issue stated that "King's lesbianism was as central to her role, as was baseball champion Jackie Robinson's race." What this statement misses (and the Mission failed to point out) is that Jackie's Catholic faith was more integral to his success as a man, a professional, and an athlete. Robinson credits his Catholicity with his strength to fight racism and endure the hatred directed towards him as a result of his being black. Miss King's lack of faith was the reason why she could live the perverted lifestyle of a practicing homosexual.
Tesa Becica,
Van Nuys
FOUL LANGUAGE IS NOT A SMALL THING
The news story about the "Gospel of Judas" in your July/August 2006 issue printed an obscenity in quoting Cornel Bonca from the Orange County Weekly. For his part, his use of that word was entirely gratuitous. His "pardon me" rings hollow.
Likewise, there is no excuse for the Mission's printing of it. Even the pagan Los Angeles Times would have excised that word.
That kind of language comes from an angry, low place, not from Christian love's gentle, kind, patient, longsuffering place. When you use that word you put it into my mind, programming me to think and speak with it. Jesus said that it was inevitable that scandal would come into the world, but woe be to him by whom it does come.
Foul language focuses the mind on low things. It encourages a raggy, spiteful, I-spit-on-your-morality attitude. This is not a small thing. Conversation in America has been ruined by everyday profanity. The Mission, given its mission, ought to be different.
Joe O'Brien
YOUR OPEN PROFANITY POLICY
While it is obvious that your newspaper has an open-border policy, I was unaware that you have an open-profanity policy as well when quoting sources. Case in point: Cornel Bonca's "What the f---, pardon me, would be the point?" statement cited under "The Gospel of Judas" blurb (July/August Mission). Except, your paper printed out the vulgar term in full. Doubtless, all of your (good, Catholic) readers enjoyed seeing the f-word spelled out in their favorite (Catholic?) news source. Nice going, LA Lay Catholic Mission. Your journalistic integrity is elevating Catholic media to new heights.
Margaret McInerney,
received via e-mail
Editor replies: So why did I let pass the "f" word? A newspaper, it seems to me, not only reports the news but holds a mirror up to society, reflecting both what is fair and what is foul. The point of the news item in question was to show how a writer on even a post-modern rag like the Orange County Weekly can see the through the false swell that surrounded the "discovery" of the "Gospel of Judas." To depict this fully, I quoted the author in his own context. I could have blocked out the offending word, or provided three dashes after the initial "f" -- but this would have inserted, as I saw it, a primness that would have spoiled the full effect of what was being portrayed. And, besides, who above the age of 13 would not have known what word "f---" was?
The treatment in the Mission of an issue such as sodomy is capable of introducing images and ideas into the minds of its readers. But I have never yet received criticism that we discuss homosexuality, even when we have done so in somewhat gruesome detail. We have quoted at length rather earthy passages from homosexual web sites and from Eve Ensler's play, Vagina Monologues, but no one ever expressed offense. Such articles are far more profane than the "f" word in print. I would agree with Mr. O'Brien on the potential programming effect if we used the word frequently in our own prose. But once in 12 years? And the word is so common that the Mission's quoting of it cannot be of much effect in the overall scheme of things.