Questions to the Moralist - Personal Web Server - Boston College

judge it to be a frustration, contra naturam, of the "natural" finality of the sexual act.
This physicalist view would in effect say that sperm deposited in the vagina would have
natural "rights" to try and realize fertilization with the lucky ovum. Now the Holy Office
(as the CDF was then called) did not ultimately endorse this line of reasoning (though it
was certainly advance) and this shows that at least in this case the Magisterium was not
claiming that somehow the use of the pill was an illicit sterilization. The Belgian Congo
situation still is debated somewhat within a certain sub-set of moral theologians (cf.
Martin Rhonheimer's Ethics of Procreation and the Defense of Human Life:
Contraception, Artificial Fertilization, and Abortion, (Washington, D.C.: Catholic
University of America Press, 2010). In this book Rhonheimer takes issue with the 1993
Civilta Cattolica article by Giacomo Perico, SJ in which Perico reiterated the Belgian
Congo case and confirmed its validity for similar rape situations in the then war-torn area
of Bosnia-Herzogovina.
So in brief whatever was likely used in the Belgian Congo was not seen (at least at that
time) as being potentially abortifacient. This is still an important point since some moral
theologians claim the progesterone pill is abortifacient and thus doubly contemptible in
Magisterial teaching, i.e., in that it is both contraceptive and abortifacient. However, I
know of no Magisterial document that would endorse that claim, and so I think we could
continue to view the use of the pill as being morally suspect merely in light of Humanae
vitae #14 which would claim it as being an "intrinsece inhonestum" in its intent and
effect of rending a potentially procreative marital act deliberately "infecund."
Plan B (or any other non-abortifacient post-coital, but pre-fertilization medical treatment)
also was allowed by the bishops of England and Wales and thus in my opinion would be
covered at least as a highly probable opinion in light of the apparent Magisterial
endorsement, pace Rhonheimer et al. Here is where the dynamics of a status quaestionis
and the approved doctrine of probabilism would come into play (though I would imagine
your undergrad students might consider this to be what they call "TMI" [too much
information]).
All this may also be TMI, but hope it helps; thanks for sharing with me how the class
went.
Fr. Jim
Dear Rev James
I do thank you for your time and effort in reading my letter. I do
have some questions in regards to the Christian Religion.
My name is *. I was a Buddhist but I am now a born again
Christian of the Protestant denomination. I am an educator by
profession and I am also a musician.
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