Setting the Scene

Think of a typical adolescent boy. He is just discovering things which have been well-known to others for a long time, unaware of how such things have been seen throughout history; he is experiencing a sort of freedom which was not previously available to him, and he longs for more; he is trying to fit in and be “trendy” according to the present cultural norms; he thinks himself to be misunderstood by his parents, whom he does not think to have very much wisdom at all compared to himself, which is obviously untrue, despite his good intentions and sincerity. He often thinks his parents are being “harsh” and “old fashioned”; he doesn’t really understand some of the more sophisticated language that his elders use or references they make to people and events, while his own vocabulary is full of neologisms and warped usages of older words, and his discourse in general is limited to simple topics and is sloppy when it isn’t. His attention is taken by celebrity gurus. He has a lot of energy, enthusiasm, and zeal for life, but he has few tools with which to solve serious problems and so often has to try to invent things on the fly – only when a true crisis occurs does he ask his parents for help, often without much thanks, and then he returns to his supposedly independent lifestyle. He is proud to have the last name that he has, and he does really love his family and will definitely stick up for his mother, but his filial piety is not always so evident, except maybe with a favorite uncle. However, it is true that his adolescence is different than it was for his parents, and he faces unique circumstances and problems which are largely unknown and sometimes inconceivable to his elders. New technology and social realities are a fact of his young life that were not for the generations preceding him. He is not interested in many of the same things which the older folks are, and this is his right insofar as taste admits of no disputation. However, he can be quick to call their tastes “lame” or “boring.” He doesn’t necessarily mean to be disrespectful, but it can seem that way sometimes; he is certainly unaware of the significance which those tastes have in the memory of those from earlier generations – how they acquired them, under what circumstances, and how they have shaped their lives. He does not realize that their tastes are, in some way, objectively better as well, having been acquired after much experience and cultivation.

This image gives one a decent picture of Catholic sexual ethics in the past 60 or so years, especially as presented in much of the popular literature. While there are exceptions to this rule, and rarely does one author exhibit all or even most of the negative characteristics just listed, the overall sense one gets when surveying the popular and even plenty of scholarly literature on Catholic sexual ethics is that, beyond reiterating a few completely uncontroversial or definitive positions on the major topics, the literature is a bit lost in itself. By this I mean that it infrequently grounds itself in the major extra-Scriptural sources of the theological tradition prior to the 1960’s or so except to make a passing mention of Casti Connubii or Arcanum, and it does not even seem aware that there is much to find before then. In a way, one might say that Humanae Vitae and The Theology of the Body have been to Catholic sexual ethics what Descartes or Kant were to Western philosophy: a turning point which people struggle to see beyond into the past, which make it so that everything must be reimagined and begun anew from the point of view contained therein – whether in agreement with the doctrines or not.

Perhaps all of this is somewhat of an exaggeration, but it is nevertheless quite evident that there is a great need for an authentic renewal in Catholic sexual ethics today. This book is a small step in that direction, and it focuses on only one of several topics which need a serious reappraisal in light of the wisdom of the Doctors and great manualists, especially St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Alphonsus Liguori, and Tómas Sánchez, SJ. So many authors do not even seem to be aware of what sorts of questions ought to be asked, let alone how to give the correct answers. What is more, some authors presume to give moral advice on less-than-clear issues without any serious education in moral theology, which is unwise both on the part of the authors and on the part of the readers who heed their uninformed (and usually seriously lax) advice. This problem is quite common in the contemporary popular literature.

Some of the issues within the world of Catholic sexual ethics today seem to stem from a decontextualized reading of St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. What is able to be loosely categorized as “personalist” sexual ethics generally takes its cue from the phenomenological aspect of John Paul’s teaching without serious advertence to the Thomistic foundations of his anthropological and ethical assumptions. This leads to a fixation on experiences and psychology, without much grounding for true moral judgments other than average subjective tastes coupled with some kind of fittingness. For example, one might consider the question, “Why should one not fornicate?” The “personalist” sort of answer might be: “Because marriage is an external sign of spiritual unity which is contradicted by the dishonesty of extramarital sexual encounters, and the bonding which accompanies sex cries out for a partnership which endures.” The better answer: “Because a child conceived will in principle lack a mother and father committed to each other for life, which is uncharitable towards the child as it is so risky to his welfare, and if contraception is used then the sexual faculty is perverted by essentially subverting its proper intentionality, thus undermining God’s design for the propagation of the human race, which is even more uncharitable and is so directly against God as Creator.”

The late Pontiff’s work on marriage and sexuality was in fact deeply informed by the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas in particular, and it is therefore a grave mistake to see the two authors as alternatives to each other.¹ There are rhetorical advantages to John Paul’s treatment of marriage and sexuality, but jettisoning “hardline” virtue ethics and the casuistry which evolved to draw definite conclusions on particular points of conscience is not only unnecessary but undermines the integrity and value of the Pope’s entire project. ¹ See Fr. Thomas Petri, OP, Aquinas and the Theology of the Body: The Thomistic Foundations of John Paul II’s Anthropology, CUA Press, 2016.

Another cause, perhaps the central occasion of the derailment of the traditional casuistic treatment of chastity, is the death of traditional courtship and the rise of dating. This seems to have occurred somewhat in conjunction with the advent of the car – suddenly it was no longer necessary to restrict one’s marriage prospects to one’s immediate vicinity where both families could and would be deeply involved in searching out the fittingness of a potential marriage. One didn’t need to plan travel by train either, leaving and arriving at precise places at scheduled times, though the rise of the railroad in the 1800’s began the erosion. From the 1920’s onward in the West, young men and women could go around quite easily by themselves and be far from home – anonymous. Then the expectation that one would build a family in one’s hometown began to fade as well; travel is easy enough, good opportunities could be far away… so be it. While the families of young men and women grew less relevant in their judgment of a partner, their emotions grew more relevant, and marriage slowly became more about one’s own personal existential fulfillment and less about fulfilling a public role in the community. With this new kind of relationship came several questions; there came especially an immediate need for precision on questions about remote expressions of affection – of the “how far can we go” variety – which had been treated by earlier authorities in a way that seemed to take for granted the non-existence of a body of social expectations which would force one to navigate this minefield so deeply.² Gone was the safety of the courtship paradigm, where a “couple” would hardly ever be alone together except by conscious deviance, deliberate disobedience, or by chance in the street – it eventually became normal and finally expected to spend long evenings together without supervision. From here we begin to see things unravel after World War II with the pill (1960), removing a major biological inconvenience to the working woman’s playtime – habitual fertility. Once this line was crossed, it was only a matter of time before the indissolubility of marriage became illusory; after all, if sex was not for producing children to such an extent that women can even disrupt the entire ovarian-uterine system’s well-functioning to maintain a career while “having fun,” why would marriage need to be forever? No-fault divorce came down the line quickly enough (1969 in California), followed shortly thereafter by movement towards abortion in the form of “privacy” in view of Sartrian self-determination, at least in the USA (1973). With the Supreme Court declaring that human nature did not exist,³ marriage was more than merely faltering as a coherent institution, evidently detached from conception and subject rather to the whim and pleasure of the man and woman who themselves allegedly do not have an inherent human nature. Therefore, it made no sense that a man would need to marry a woman and vice-versa. Once “same-sex marriage” became a widespread phenomenon (2004-2015 in the USA), it was not a large leap to accept that biological sex is actually ephemeral and can and should be changed to match one’s interior feelings about how one wants to be perceived and interact with others; or else, perhaps biological sex is not even real at all. ² This book will not address the topic of “remote signs of affection.” It is simply noted in passing as a topic that deserves a serious treatment. ³ See the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) authored by Justice Blackmun.

The most cursory study of attitudes and opinions of marriage throughout history and across cultures reveals that Westerners of the 21st century have an extraordinary fixation on romance. However, it must be noted that even St. Pius V was eager to point out that one of the principal motives for marrying is in fact the companionship contained therein: “We have now to explain why man and woman should be joined in marriage. First of all, nature itself by an instinct implanted in both sexes impels them to such companionship, and this is further encouraged by the hope of mutual assistance in bearing more easily the discomforts of life and the infirmities of old age.”⁴ By God’s design, men and women tend to enjoy being around each other in an exclusive relationship to help one another through their difficulties. While not a promotion or endorsement of marrying for “romance” or for “love,” we see that the saintly and ascetic Pontiff knew in the 1500’s that boys like girls and girls like boys, and he thought that this was a good thing. He continues: “If to these [aforementioned motives] we add other causes which induce to contract marriage, and, in choosing a wife, to prefer one person to another, such as the desire of leaving an heir, wealth, beauty, illustrious descent, congeniality of disposition, such motives, because not inconsistent with the holiness of marriage, are not to be condemned.”⁵ Later in the same chapter, however, he cautions against marriages driven by youthful desire: “But above all, lest young persons, whose period of life is marked by extreme indiscretion, should be deceived by a merely nominal marriage and foolishly rush into sinful love unions, the pastor cannot too frequently remind them that there can be no true and valid marriage unless it be contracted in the presence of the parish priest, or of some other priest commissioned by him, or by the Ordinary, and that of a certain number of witnesses.”^{6 4} Catechism of the Council of Trent for Parish Priests (“The Roman Catechism”), promulgated by order of Pope St. Pius V (1566), translated by Fr. John McHugh, OP and Fr. Charles Callan, OP (1923), 16th edition (1962), p. 343-344. ⁵ Ibid., p. 344-345. ⁶ Ibid., p. 353.

Yet there is much to condemn in prevalent attitudes toward marriage today. In much of the United States, as elsewhere in the West, the average couple showing up for marriage preparation at their local parish is almost entirely unchurched, has little to no understanding of the Faith or commitment to practice it, is “living together,” and is using contraception of some sort (and perhaps practicing other unnatural vices) with no intention to stop doing so once married. Marriage for such people is seen more as being a rite of passage rather than as a fundamental change in the way they live their lives that brings distinct rights and obligations. Thus, the focus of such couples is so frequently on “the wedding” rather than on “the marriage.” Soon enough, the focus will be on the divorce proceedings and who gets to “keep the kids.”

This is the current state of things. Where we might go is a worthy topic of conversation but is not the conversation here, which is moral-ethical analysis rather than cultural-sociological speculation. My guess, however, is that the widespread use of “AI girlfriends,” including “deepfakes,”⁷ and perhaps a marked increased acceptance of polyamory are the next steps. ⁷ To have an avatar who is designed according to one’s tastes; who will say and do whatever one wants, whenever one wants, however one wants; who has no needs and will never grow old; who will never offer rejection and can be discarded and regained easily, without any consequence – this is alluring. Eventually there will likely be physical machines capable of simulating human interaction in a similar way, though this is perhaps a long way off.

The moral literature of the mid to late-1900’s is somewhat anemic compared to previous eras, despite some standout exceptions. This is not only due to the decline of casuistry in general and pollution of the field by the spirit of modernism and laxity, but it is also the case that after the explosion of interest in family life in the second half of the 1800’s in the run up to Italian unification (1870), the world and the Church of the 20th century were swept up by the practicalities and moral questions related to World War I, the Roman Question, World War II and the atomic bomb, the Second Vatican Council and its reforms, the reform of the 1917 Code of Canon Law (1983), the fall of Communism in Europe (1989), the invention and rise of the cell phone, the invention of the internet – hardly a moment to pause and think about how marriage had been subtly undermined by advances in transportation technology, beginning in the 1800’s and maturing in the 1920’s.⁸ The literature related to marriage ethics came largely as a response to Humanae Vitae, itself a response to the creation of “the pill” and the subsequent so-called “Sexual Revolution,” more or less taking place from the late 1950’s to the late 1970’s, which constituted a particular kind of crisis in its own precise context. Without the technological advancement of oral contraceptives, the ethical reflection would have likely remained at the level which Pius XI had left it with Casti Connubii when addressing the same general question in response to the Anglicans’ approval of contraception at Lambeth in 1930. Note that Casti Connubii is an attempt at playing catch-up, just as Humanae Vitae would be almost four decades later.^{9 8} Pope Gregory XVI (d. 1846), a noted luddite, once exclaimed, “Chemin de fer, chemin d’enfer!” (“Road of iron, road to Hell!”) He prevented the construction of a rail system in the Papal States during his reign. While certainly too cautious about new technology (he also disliked gas lamps), we can note that his famous utterance was in a way prophetic. ⁹ The topic of contraception had already preoccupied Pius XI’s close friend and advisor, the famous Fr. Gemelli, but we find relatively little treatment of it at the Roman level before Casti Connubii.

Now, with the decline of dating, the ubiquitousness of pornography, (including the startling applications of AI to such degeneracy,) and the “Tinderization” of relationships, a whole other range of psychosocial problems has arisen which preoccupies authors. Nowadays, young people are asked unironically by casual semi-romantic partners to “DTR” – “define the relationship.” This is often in an effort to avoid languishing in what is called a “situationship.”

While the psychosocial trends are no doubt an important field of inquiry, the literature leaves unexplored the specific on-the-ground problems which “dating” poses and leaves unsolved any number of vexing casuistic puzzles related to the use of marriage¹⁰ that were never definitively settled in the manuals or by Roman authority. (When authors do seek to treat these topics, they do so rather poorly.) Since it is all but impossible to recover courtship, “dating” is now seen as something traditional and ideal, as opposed to aggressive patterns of fornication or ill-defined non-committal long-term semi-romantic partnerships. The moral aspects related to dating therefore need to be treated more surgically.¹¹ What is more, the field of inquiry of the life of chastity for the married couple remains ripe for the intellectual harvest with great pastoral benefits awaiting, including, in the present author’s view, providing the correct point of departure for understanding chastity and purity (its annexed virtue) between potential spouses, especially including the integration into the evaluation of “romantic acts” of a thorough treatment of the concupiscible passions in relation to various objects of love, desire, and delight, but also perhaps including the irascible passions of hope and daring. ¹⁰ The euphemism “using marriage” refers to conjugal relations. ¹¹ The major lacuna in the classical literature appears to be a failure to integrate a robust treatment of how the passions are related to lawful but remote natural union. This problem afflicts both the treatment of the unmarried (“6th Commandment”) and the married (“Use of Marriage”) – in fact, the pathway to a fuller understanding of what is lawful “to feel” and “to want” when unmarried will likely only proceed from an accurate vision of what is lawful for spouses. Unfortunately, apart from totally uncontroversial points, there is a shocking amount of inconsistency on the latter topic among the older authors when there is not silence. The case of the amplexus reservatus (intentionally incomplete natural union) is paradigmatic in this regard (although it is now indirectly condemned as at least venial sin by Pius XII). Some older opinions about chastity in marriage are also founded upon faulty biological assumptions about the mechanics of conception. These discussions exceed the scope of the present text but lurk in the background nonetheless.