Onanism

Against the primary and essential end of marriage spouses can sin in two ways: a. by imperfect sodomy; b. by onanism.

71. On sodomy. Imperfect sodomy is committed when the man penetrates the preposterous vessel of the woman, whether he inseminates in it or outside it.

1. Sodomy committed between spouses is a grave sin, both because it is opposed to the natural end of the conjugal act and of virile semen, and because it is opposed to conjugal fidelity, which requires that spouses not use the body otherwise than in a mode apt for generation; nor can spouses remit this fidelity to one another.

Therefore if sodomitical intercourse occurs by mutual consent, it is a most grave sin on each side; if it occurs with the wife dissenting, certainly the man sins most gravely by a sin against nature; but it is asked whether the wife can ever permit this and cooperate with the sin of the man.

2. Positive cooperation with sodomy is never licit. Nevertheless, from a most grave cause a wife can licitly suffer the sodomitical intercourse of the man under this twofold condition: a. that she tries to impede this intercourse and permits it only then when she cannot impede it without danger of a most grave evil; b. that she does not consent to the venereal delectation then arising.

Note. In this matter one must altogether insist on the principle: apart from those things which are against the end of nature, there do not occur actions between spouses, however disordered and filthy they may be, which can certainly be accused of grave sin. Wherefore, sodomitical affection being excluded, this twofold action is not to be called gravely culpable: a. to begin intercourse in the preposterous vessel with the intention of consummating it in the natural vessel; b. to touch the preposterous vessel of the wife with the genitals, provided effusion of semen is guarded against.

72. On onanism. Onanism is called intercourse completed in such a way that generation cannot follow from the semen poured forth.

This can occur in two ways: a. if the man, after intercourse has been begun in the natural vessel, withdraws himself before insemination and pours forth semen outside the vessel; b. if by the help of an instrument he impedes the semen from reaching the vessel of the woman and scatters it.

a. Medical doctors by the name of onanism also designate the sin of softness or solitary pollution; but theologians distinguish the sin of pollution from the sin of onanism, and by the name of onanism signify only the effusion of semen outside the female vessel which is joined with intercourse. Sometimes onanism is also called Malthusianism from the Englishman Malthus, who sought means of impeding the excessive multiplication of human beings.

b. The sin of onanism received its name from Onan, who, as Sacred Scripture testifies, "entering to the wife of his brother, poured forth semen on the earth, lest children be born in the name of his brother."¹ The same sin had already been perpetrated before Onan by his brother Her.

c. The former mode of committing onanism was once the only one, wherefore by older authors onanism is customarily defined as: the breaking off of intercourse already begun, so that semen is poured forth outside the vessel and thus generation is impeded. But in recent times certain preservative or preventive means have been invented, by which it is brought about that semen does not reach the vessel of the woman, or, if it has reached it, that it is killed there.²

d. The reasons on account of which today spouses frequently come together in an onanistic manner are chiefly these: a. lest they generate children whom they either cannot or do not wish to nourish; b. lest, with the patrimony divided among many, the nobility of the family suffer detriment; c. for satisfying libido and at the same time for escaping the inconveniences of pregnancy, childbirth, and education.

¹ Gen. 38, 9.

² Cf. Seved Ribbing, Die sexuelle Hygiene (Leipzig: Hobbing, 1898), p. 102 f.; G. Adolf, Die Gefahren der kunstlichen Sterilitat (Leipzig: Kruger, 1899); Antonelli I, n. 458 ff.; Nardi, De Sanctitate matrimonii vindicata contra onanismum^3 (Rome: Desclee, 1907).

73. Its malice. 1. Onanism committed by mutual consent of spouses is a grave sin on each side, both because it is opposed to the primary end of marriage, and because it is opposed to conjugal fidelity, and finally because it is opposed not only to the health of the spouses but especially to the good of human society. Therefore in Sacred Scripture it is called a detestable thing,¹ and the Holy See declares it prohibited by natural law² and intrinsically evil.³ Where it is committed by the man alone without the consent of the wife, he certainly sins gravely, nor is the wife bound to render the debt to a man who completes intercourse onanistically: for she obligated herself only to the use of marriage which of itself is apt for generation. But it is asked whether the wife can permit this mode of coming together and cooperate with the sin of the man.

From onanism must be distinguished the interruption of intercourse which occurs from fortuitous necessity, e.g. to avoid scandal which a person unexpectedly arriving would suffer. But if, after intercourse has been interrupted, semen were poured forth, the effusion would be free from fault: for since intercourse is interrupted from another end, the effusion occurs beyond intention, and therefore must be equated with involuntary pollution.

2. To break off intercourse already begun before semen is poured forth, without proximate danger of pouring it forth outside the wife's vagina, a. is a grave sin if either party is unwilling, because it is against the right which the other party has to completed intercourse; b. is not a sin if both consent, provided there is a reasonable cause for acting in this way and danger of pouring forth semen is excluded, because intercourse of this kind is like an immodest touch, which is licit between spouses.

Today it not rarely occurs that men, from true or vain fear lest the wife will die if she conceives again, break off intercourse already begun before the effusion of semen. Although they must be exhorted to abstain from this kind of thing because of the danger of pollution, nevertheless, if they assert that pollution follows only rarely, this cannot be prohibited to them.

Note. a. The more this lamentable and detestable practice, such as the prohibition of offspring, gains strength even in Germany, not only in families of the rich but also in families of laborers and the poor, the more the necessity appears, both in the examination of betrothed persons and in the confessional, of openly declaring that the prohibition of offspring never in any case becomes licit, and that abstinence is the only licit means of preventing offspring. Nor should it be said that continence, especially for younger spouses, is morally impossible on account of proximate danger of sinning. For Christian spouses who must abstain from the use of marriage, not from egoistic motives but only from truly just causes, either for a time or perpetually, have in prayer and other exercises of piety the means of obtaining from God the gift of continence, who will not suffer anyone to be tempted beyond what he is able.⁴

b. In most cases the fault of frustrated generation is in the man, more rarely in the woman, except that women are more indulgent toward men abusing marriage and by their complaints about fear of illness and of death itself, about the inconveniences of pregnancy and education, and by their moroseness in rendering the debt, give the man an occasion of abusing marriage. Wherefore women must be treated in different ways according to the diversity of circumstances. Some must be taught concerning the obligation of obeying; innocent women must be consoled and taught how they ought to conduct themselves toward onanist husbands, lest they themselves also commit sin; the fainthearted must be lifted up and admonished to trust in God and not too readily to believe physicians exaggerating the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth, and that they themselves can impede many sins of the husband and in this way contribute to his eternal salvation. But women who complain concerning the inconveniences and difficulties of pregnancy, childbirth, nourishment, and education should remember that these are consequences of original sin: I will multiply your toils and your conceptions; in pain you shall bring forth children,⁵ and therefore are to be borne in a spirit of humility and penance.

¹ Gen. 38, 9-10.

² Holy Office, 21 May 1851.

³ Holy Office, 19 Apr. 1853.

⁴ 1 Cor. 10, 13.

⁵ Gen. 3, 16.

74. On the cooperation of the wife with onanistic intercourse. 1. It is clear that formal cooperation, by which namely the wife consents to onanism, is gravely illicit. And indeed the wife sins gravely even then when, by her complaints concerning the pains of childbirth, concerning numerous offspring, etc., with foresight of the sin to be committed, she gives the husband an occasion for onanistic intercourse.

2. Material cooperation with the first mode of onanism is licit from a moderately grave cause.¹ It is not necessary that this cause be plainly grave, because the wife does not cooperate with a thing already evil from the beginning; nevertheless this is required, that she prudently admonish the husband to complete the act rightly: for from charity she is bound to impede the sin of the man. But she ought to admonish the husband cautiously and prudently, lest, if perhaps he were in good faith, afterward he sin formally. Nevertheless, she is not bound to admonish on each occasion if no fruit is hoped for; and if she cannot admonish without grave inconvenience, e.g. without fear of indignation, discord, adultery, etc., she can omit the admonition.

a. That the positive, material cooperation of the wife with the onanistic intercourse of the husband is not intrinsically evil and therefore is not illicit in itself is admitted by all today: for immediately she cooperates with licit intercourse and only mediately with the illicit effusion of semen. Nor is this cooperation argued to be illicit from the fact that cooperation with sodomitical intercourse is illicit. Certainly onanistic intercourse cannot be compared with sodomitical intercourse: for onanistic intercourse, licit at the beginning on each side, begins to become evil on the part of the man when the man withdraws himself, while the woman has herself merely passively. On the contrary, sodomitical intercourse at any instant is intrinsically evil on each side, and therefore is never licit on either side.

b. If women accuse themselves because they rejoiced about the onanistic practice of the husband, they must not immediately be accused of mortal sin: for often they rejoice not about sin but about an altogether licit thing, namely either about the pleasure of intercourse or about the effects of the sin, as about preservation from the troubles of pregnancy and childbirth.

c. But the wife can give consent to the pleasure arising from intercourse, because she herself, in rendering the debt to an onanist husband, does a licit thing. Sometimes, as experience testifies, offspring is conceived even from onanistic intercourse of the first mode. Now if it were probable that conception could follow even from onanistic intercourse, or at least if the wife judged it probable that she had received the semen, she would have the right of exciting herself to complete pleasure.

d. A sufficient cause which renders cooperation with the onanism of the man licit for the wife would be this: a. fear of inconvenience, as of quarrels, disputes, etc.; b. fear lest the husband commit adulteries; c. if otherwise she would have to abstain from the use of marriage for a long time with her own inconvenience; d. if she would be impeded from exercises of piety and from the use of the sacraments; e. if, with domestic peace disturbed, cohabitation would be rendered troublesome.

3. Material cooperation with the second mode of onanism can be permitted only from fear of a most grave evil, and consent to delectation must be excluded; for in this case the wife cooperates proximately with a thing wholly illicit, but in the former case she cooperates with an act which is licit apart from the pouring forth of semen. Therefore in the former case, in which intercourse is rightly begun, the wife can render the debt and have herself simply passively toward the breaking off of intercourse; but in the latter case it is not licit for her to have herself passively, but she is bound, by resisting positively according to her strength, to impede the act sinful in itself; and only from a most grave cause can she permit what she cannot impede.

a. The wife not only can, but also is bound to render intercourse to an onanist husband in the former case: for since the husband seeks a thing to which he has a right, the wife cannot deny it, although she knows that he will abuse it. Nevertheless, because the one rendering cooperates with the sin of the husband, she cannot render it without a just cause.²

b. From a moderately grave cause, the wife in the former case licitly seeks the debt from an onanist husband. For since the act which she seeks is not evil in itself and the husband, if he wishes, can furnish it without sin, nothing stands in the way of the petition except the precept by which from charity she is bound to impede the sin of the husband. But since charity does not obligate with grave inconvenience, she licitly seeks it whenever it is grave for her to lack the conjugal act.

¹ This is confirmed by several responses of the Sacred Penitentiary, the last of which is from 8 June 1842.

² Cf. St. Alphonsus, l. 6, n. 947.

75. Means of avoiding onanism. a. The crime of onanism today spreads widely and is propagated more widely day by day especially for this reason, that spouses wish to enjoy the pleasure of marriage without undergoing the burden of nourishing numerous offspring. For avoiding onanism, wives especially must be admonished to induce husbands by blandishments, prayers, and exhortations either to complete the act rightly or to abstinence.

Motives by which spouses can be deterred from the crime of onanism: a. onanism is a cause of adulteries: for since spouses, especially women, are not satiated by imperfect acts of this kind, they seek illicit pleasures; b. it destroys conjugal peace and concord; c. it causes the joys of father and mother to withdraw from families, into whose place succeed remorse of conscience and fears lest God punish so horrible a crime and snatch away from the living the only offspring; d. onanism is the cause on account of which a family in which only one or another offspring is procreated soon perishes; e. finally, it brings pains of body and manifold detriment of health, especially in women.¹

b. Since no licit means of impeding generation exists, the confessor can advise spouses who wish to prevent further generation of offspring, cautiously and prudently however, that at the time at which conception more easily occurs, namely three or four days before and fifteen days after menstruation has begun, they should contain themselves, but at another time, at which conception rarely occurs, they may use marriage.

c. That this mode of acting is licit is clear not only from the nature of the matter, since nothing is done which is against the end of marriage, but is also established from the declaration of the Holy See.² But the reason on account of which this practice should be suggested only cautiously and prudently is twofold: both because it can give spouses an occasion at any time either of denying the debt or of committing onanism, and because this means is not certain: for experience establishes that conception sometimes has place even at this time.³

¹ Eschbach, p. 569 ff.; Stohr, Handbuch der Pastoralmedizin (Freiburg: Herder, 1900), p. 497 ff.

² The Sacred Penitentiary, 16 June 1880, responded: spouses using marriage in the aforesaid way are not to be disturbed, and the confessor can suggest, cautiously however, the opinion in question to those spouses whom he has tried in vain to lead away from the detestable crime of onanism by another reason.

³ Cf. Olfers, Pastoralmedizin^2, p. 70 f.; Capellmann, Die fakultative Sterilitat (Aachen: Barth, 1889).

76. As regards the manner of treating penitents given to onanism, from several responses of the Holy See¹ these things must be noted:

a. The confessor is bound prudently and discreetly to question penitents when a founded suspicion is present that they are altogether silent concerning onanism to which they are addicted. But he can question by inquiring whether there is something which troubles the conscience concerning the sanctity of marriage, the generation of offspring. But if the penitent denies it, for the most part he can abstain from further questioning.

In those regions in which the vice of onanism spreads widely, the confessor can almost always reasonably suppose that the penitent deliberately conceals that sin. Nevertheless, let him abstain from special questions: whether they have poured forth semen outside the vessel; whether they have impeded generation by withdrawing themselves, etc.

b. When the confessor, either from spontaneous confession or from prudent questioning, has known that the penitent is an onanist, of himself he is bound to admonish him concerning the gravity of this sin, to reprove him with paternal charity, and to impart absolution to him only when it is established by sufficient signs that he sorrows concerning the past and has the resolution of no longer acting onanistically.

c. Nevertheless, if he discovers that the onanist penitent is in good faith, but that admonition will have no fruit, according to the general rule concerning admonishing those who sin in good faith, he can omit the admonition or speak in such a way that he does not disturb the good faith of the penitent.²

Although invincible ignorance enduring for a long time cannot be admitted as regards secondary precepts of the natural law, nevertheless if those precepts are joined with circumstances apparently excusing, especially in those who are untrained in moral matters, ignorance will have to be admitted, as if the husband knows that the wife cannot bear children without danger of life, or that he cannot nourish children.

¹ Holy Office, 21 May 1851; Penitentiary, 14 Dec. 1876; 10 Mar. 1886.

² Cf. Ballerini-Palmieri VI, n. 247; Genicot II, n. 551.

77. Artificial fecundation is called that by which virile semen is injected into the uterus of the woman apart from perfect intercourse. Now artificial fecundation must be said to be illicit.¹

a. Spallanzani, a priest of Modena and professor of physiology in the University of Pavia, was the first to teach that fecundation can be done in an artificial mode; he had introduced male semen into the female organs in animals with successful outcome. Physicians have tried the same thing and with the same outcome in human beings, and day by day they perfect it when spouses desire offspring, the wife indeed being capable of conception, but the husband incapable of rightly performing intercourse.

b. Since it is not licit for a woman to receive semen except that of her own husband, in the fecundation concerning whose liceity the question is asked, it is supposed that the semen of the proper husband is introduced into the uterus of the wife; this is customarily done in two ways.

a. The first mode consists in this, that the man has intercourse with his spouse, but when insemination is imminent withdraws himself and pours forth semen in some vessel, which afterward the physician gathers by the help of an instrument and injects into the uterus. This mode is illicit, because onanism or effusion of semen outside the female vessel has place.

b. The second mode consists in this, that the man, apart from intercourse, pours forth semen in some vessel, which afterward the physician gathers by the help of an instrument and introduces into the uterus of the wife. This mode is illicit, because fecundation is obtained only through an illicit means, namely through voluntary pollution.

c. Nevertheless the wife, for avoiding truly grave inconveniences, could admit artificial fecundation, because she herself does not cooperate actively in the evil action, but has herself merely passively and permissively in receiving the semen of her husband.

d. There is a twofold mode of fecundation which can be called artificial, but is licit. The first consists in this, that the man places an instrument in the female vessel, either so that the vagina may be dilated, or so that the uterus may be placed in its natural position; this being done, they have intercourse in the accustomed manner. This mode is licit, since nature is only assisted in performing intercourse. The other consists in this, that the man has intercourse in the usual manner and pours forth semen within the vagina, which afterward the physician draws by the help of an instrument and injects into the fundus of the uterus. This mode also is licit, because natural intercourse is had; this being posited, by the help of an instrument the defect of nature is supplied.

Whether by illicit artificial fecundation marriage is consummated if offspring follows from it, Sanchez affirms,² who judges that marriage is consummated whenever semen is received within the natural vessel of the woman, by whatever art this occurs. Gasparri denies it,³ and rightly indeed: for marriage is not consummated except by intercourse, to which marriage is ordered by nature; but this is intercourse which occurs with penetration of the female vessel and effusion of semen in the same. Wherefore marriage is not judged to be consummated even when the husband applies semen to the mouth of the vagina, although offspring is born from it.

¹ The Holy Office, to the question "Whether artificial fecundation of a woman can be employed," responded on 25 Mar. 1897: It is not licit. Cf. Eschbach, Disputationes physiol. theolog.^2, p. 70 ff.; Berardi, Praxis confessariorum^3, I, n. 1009 ff.; Antonelli I, n. 115 ff.

² L. 7, disp. 99, n. 37.

³ II, n. 1302.

A husband who, in incomplete intercourse, voluntarily withdraws from his wife and sheds the seed outside the vessel commits a grave sin against nature and against the end of marriage. From the deed of Onan the sin is called onanism. It is established that it is a grave sin from Holy Scripture, from the fact that it frustrates the principal end of marriage, and tends to the ruin of the human race. It is established also from several replies of the Sacred Congregations. Morally it makes no difference by what means this sin of frustrated nature is committed — whether by some instrument, or by a sheath, or by washing the woman’s vessel after intercourse, or by the mere withdrawal of the husband before emission.

If such a thing is done by the mutual counsel and consent of the spouses, both sin gravely. If, however, the husband’s withdrawal displeases the wife, and she has vainly tried to induce him to complete the act rightly, she does not seem to be forbidden to render the debt to her husband when he asks it, or even to ask it herself for a grave cause. For she co-operates only materially with the husband’s sin, and such co-operation is lawful for a grave cause. And there is a grave cause both on the husband’s side, lest he be offended, and on the wife’s side, who is not to be deprived of her marital rights with danger of incontinence. It is lawful, therefore, for the woman, even though the husband act onanistically, to take venereal pleasure in the use of marriage; indeed it is lawful for her, after the husband has withdrawn, to excite herself by touches to complete satisfaction if she has not yet experienced it. Confessors ought not as a rule to question married people about the manner in which they exercise their marital rights. If, however, a spouse proposes doubts about the lawfulness of onanism, the confessor ought briefly to explain the Catholic doctrine to him. Indeed, if he has a well-founded suspicion that the spouses are acting onanistically, whether in good or in bad faith, he ought to warn them, since a grave sin is in question, very harmful to the spouses themselves and to human society. A spouse who will not acquiesce in the Catholic doctrine on this matter is of himself incapable of absolution.

¹ Gen. xxxviii 9.

Cf. our little work: De virtute castitatis et vitiis oppositis, nn. 138 sq., 114 sq.

The following must especially be noted:

I. Pollution, which in spouses in a certain way takes on the character of adultery, insofar as it involves the use of one's own body and thereby injures both the partner's right over it and the sanctity of the sacrament, which confirms the rights and duties of spouses.

II. Acts committed with a third party constitute adultery (n. 35), or take on its character, as was explained (n. 71).

III. Artificial fecundation, which consists in this: that a physician receives in a small vessel semen emitted by a man solitarily or onanistically, and with the help of a small tube infuses it into the genital organs of the woman. That this manner of acting is gravely evil is clear from the fact that fecundation is obtained by means of, or after there has first been, pollution or the sin of onanism. There is added the declaration of the Holy Office of March 24, 1897.¹ Otherwise, with sufficient probability, one must speak of artificial fecundation improperly so called, which consists in this: that the physician draws out with the help of a small tube semen infused into the female vessel through intercourse, and then inserts it more deeply into the female organ. For on the one hand intercourse is rightly performed and is assisted by art so that it may attain its end, namely fecundation; on the other hand it is not evident that the semen, through the physician's act which is completed by a further insertion of the semen into the female organ, is deprived by its ordination of its end, or that, during the action, it had been formally deprived of the said ordination.

¹ To the doubt, "Whether artificial fecundation of a woman can be employed," it answered: "It is not lawful."

Corollary. Likewise, for a grave cause it seems lawful to draw out semen from the husband's epididymis and infuse it into the wife's vagina. I said for a grave cause, because the natural order requires that offspring be procreated through intercourse. But it is unlawful to take in this way the semen of another man, even if the husband and the wife of the said man consent, because in a procreation of this sort, as proceeding from persons not bound by the bond of marriage, the education of the offspring would not be sufficiently provided for (n. 33).¹

107. IV. Intercourse in the wife's undue vessel is called imperfect sodomy if it is in the preposterous vessel (n. 57), and irrumation if it is in the mouth (n. 57); these sins seem not to differ from one another (n. 57).

Question. Whether imperfect sodomy or irrumation is had if intercourse is begun in the undue vessel with the intention of completing it in the due vessel. Many deny this, and consequently judge that in the case not even grave sin is had. But St. Alphonsus, with others, affirms it, because the intention of consummating intercourse in the due vessel does not prevent a perverse commingling, of which we spoke in n. 57, from being had as begun, although not to be consummated (VI, 935). I said, however, in the undue vessel, because the matter must be resolved otherwise if the man merely rubbed the male member on the surface of the preposterous vessel or of the closed mouth, because commingling is not had (n. 57); nevertheless an affection toward sodomy improperly so called, or toward irrumation, can be joined to it. Lying together on a part of the spouse's body distinct from the anus and the mouth belongs to pollution.

¹ Cf. Vermeersch, De castitate, n. 241.

V. Onanism,¹ which must be treated more fully.

¹ Forstmann-Ausems, Het Neomalthusianismus.

1. Notion and division. Onanism¹ is twofold: natural and artificial. Natural onanism consists in this: that intercourse, rightly begun, is broken off without a legitimate reason in such a way that the semen is poured out outside the vessel. I said without a legitimate reason; for because of a grave reason intercourse can be broken off, even if the pouring out of the semen outside the vessel follows from this, for example so that scandal may be avoided, or because intercourse cannot be continued on account of pain; in circumstances of this sort the loss of semen can be permitted (St. Alphonsus VI, 918). Artificial, or modern, onanism² is situated in the use of a preservative means or instrument by which it is brought about that the semen does not touch the vagina. It is called the English cloak, and is a thin membrane with which the male member is clothed, and by which the semen is caught and withdrawn after intercourse. The following are commonly referred to onanism: 1. the use either of an occlusive pessary, that is, an instrument which is introduced into the vagina near the mouth of the uterus, so that the ascent of the semen from the vagina to the uterus is impeded, or of a sponge, which likewise is introduced into the vagina as far as the opening of the uterus; 2. the use of a certain powder, which before intercourse is blown into the vagina and substantially corrupts the semen; 3. the use of a medicine which moistens the mouth of the uterus and so tightens and closes it that the semen cannot enter the uterus; 4. the use of a siphon or irrigator by which the semen after intercourse is washed out of the vagina.

109. 2. Morality. a. Onanism, both natural and artificial, is intrinsically and gravely evil, nor can it ever for any reason become lawful.

It is intrinsically evil, because it involves a use of the semen which lacks ordination to the natural end of semen, that is, to the good of the species (n. 19).

It is gravely evil, because it involves a use of semen which is neither apt for generation nor ordered to the education of the one to be generated; these privations are grave (n. 28).

Nor can it ever for any reason become lawful. For this could not happen unless there were an intermediate end to which the good of the human species is subordinated, so that it would be lawful to pursue that intermediate end while neglecting the good of the species. But such an intermediate end does not exist, since the good of the human species is immediately ordered to the ultimate end, which is God (n. 29). There are added the responses of the Holy Office, which declare onanism to be "forbidden by natural law" (May 21, 1851) and "intrinsically evil" (April 19, 1853). Add the very grave evils which threaten both spouses and offspring and society from onanism.³ Furthermore, onanism is unlawful even in a case in which, in appearance, it benefits some society, namely because in some region only weak and miserable offspring is usually born. For first, evils are not to be done so that good things may come about. Then, for offspring it is always better to be thus than not to be (n. 97).

Moreover, it is clear that not only the onanistic husband sins gravely, but also the wife who desires, approves, or advises the husband's manner of acting, or who in another way, for example by complaining about more numerous offspring, brings it about that the husband commits onanism.

b. Likewise all those manners of acting which we said are referred to onanism (n. 108) are gravely evil, because all of them, by directly bringing it about that the emitted semen cannot attain its end, directly impede the good of the species (n. 44). There is added the fact that the use of a pessary or sponge seems to bring it about that intercourse is not apt for generation, as we shall soon explain more fully (n. 110).

¹ Physicians more often designate by the name onanism what theologians call masturbation.

² Artificial onanism is often called Neo-Malthusianism; that is, Malthus, an Englishman by nation, in the book Essay on the Principles of Population, in order to diminish the number of offspring, advised that the liberty of nuptials be restricted. The Neo-Malthusians, however, went further and devised means for frustrating fecundation.

³ "The spouses themselves often suffer many evils from this; for just as children are a common good and a common bond by which spouses are more firmly and closely joined, so conversely those who lack offspring much more easily disagree and separate from each other. Nor should it be said that one or another child suffices for attaining this end; for the more numerous the offspring, the firmer the union of the spouses. Moreover, onanists are not rarely punished by the premature death of one or another child whom they had begotten; hence parents of an only child are often pressed by anxieties and fears lest perhaps this child be taken from the living and the family name be blotted out. - Furthermore marital intercourse which, when legitimately performed, is a remedy for concupiscence, does not soothe it but inflames it when it is completed onanistically; especially the woman is not completely delighted, nor does she rest unless the womb is irrigated with male semen tempering its ardor. - Hence physicians also proclaim with one voice that onanists are liable to many diseases, which arise especially from the excitation of the nerves; for the commotion which lying together causes is not soothed except by the natural effusion and reception of male sperm.

"Offspring also not rarely suffer some detriment from the onanism of the parents, which the Council of Poitiers (1868) describes thus: It happens very often that that child is educated too indulgently, or by God's command ends life briefly, or, having become worse with age, destitute of the sweet love and protection of brothers and sisters, loving himself, not obeying his parents, proud, ungrateful, without affection, afflicts his family with ignominy and sorrow.

"Nor does onanism harm society less. Since, indeed, the chief strength and protection of society is situated in the number and manly education of citizens, onanism, by impeding generation, diminishes the number of citizens, so that nations once flourishing gradually decline. It likewise stands in the way of the manly education of boys: for where there is an only son, generally he is educated too indulgently, is devoted to pleasure rather than to duty, and often becomes wholly useless to his fatherland" (Tanquerey, Supplementum ad tractatum de Matrimonio, nn. 41-43; cf. Eschbach, Disputationes physiologico-theologicae, p. 569; Forstmann-Ausems, Het Neomalthusianismus).

Question 1. Whether a man can complete intercourse: 1. if the wife uses an occlusive pessary or sponge and refuses to remove it; 2. if the wife has used a powder which, blown into the vagina, substantially corrupts the semen, and refuses to abstain from it; 3. if the wife has tightened the mouth of the uterus by medicines and refuses to remove them.

Response. The man is certainly bound to forbid the things mentioned and to oppose them as far as can be done. But if he has lost his oil and labor, one must speak thus:

To I. It seems that it must be denied, because for right intercourse there is required an effusion of semen into a vagina which is not substantially vitiated. But the vagina, which is a fleshy member with an opening as far as the uterus, or like a canal proceeding as far as the uterus, seems, although it remains physically intact, to be substantially vitiated, morally speaking, through occlusion. What has been said generally is confirmed by the fact that from declarations of the S.C.C.¹ it seems one must deduce that a naturally occluded vagina is substantially vitiated. I acknowledge, however, that this confirmation cannot be urged with certainty, because in our case there is question of an artificial occlusion, which leaves the vagina physically intact.²

To II. With sufficient probability it is affirmed, because the vagina is not substantially vitiated by the powder introduced, but only accidentally, almost as the vagina of a woman who can receive semen but cannot retain it (n. 86).

To III. It is to be affirmed, because the vagina itself is not vitiated by the said medicine. The fact that the mouth of the uterus is tightened does not prevent intercourse from being considered apt in itself, as is clear from the fact that intercourse is lawful for pregnant women, who have the mouth of the uterus closed (n. 90).

¹ The responses of the said S.C.C. in the Salernitana, March 21, 1863; in the Verulana, January 24 and June 22, 1871; and in the Monasteriensis, December 16, 1899, declare null the marriage of a woman who lacked a uterus and had a short vagina closed near the uterus. Now the lack of a uterus and the shortness of the vagina do not stand in the way of potency (n. 86); therefore it remains that the occlusion of the vagina stands in the way.

² So also, with his opinion changed, teaches Vermeersch (Periodica de re canonica et morali, 1926, p. 65). The Bishops of Germany speak thus: "If the husband knows that the wife herself wishes to frustrate conception by the use of instruments or means inserted into the female vessel, he must very decisively hold her back from this, and, if possible, remove and destroy any instruments. If he does not succeed in this, or if despite his best will he has not been able to prevent the use of chemical preparations, one will not be able to require of him that he always practice abstinence. Rather, the conjugal act will be permitted to him for a grave cause whenever it is grave for him to lack the conjugal act, or if he himself were in danger of incontinence. But the presupposition is that he seeks the conjugal act moderately and in an ordered manner, and intends to complete it rightly; that he does not consent to the woman, and that he not merely warns her away from her criminal conduct, but seeks to hold her back from it as well as possible" (Instructio pro confessariis de usu et abusu matrimonii, § 5). From these things Vermeersch (loc. cit.) deduces that the said Bishops adhere to the more benign opinion. But regarding these things the Zeitschrift fuer katholische Theologie notes: "Must the Instruction necessarily be interpreted in this sense? In the first sentence of § 5 there is question of the use of instruments or means, chemical means; whether, therefore, it is a mechanical closure or only a chemical means, the husband must demand its removal. But in the second sentence, where for a grave cause intercourse is still permitted to the man if the woman does not obey, there is no longer question of instruments, a pessary, but only of chemical means which leave the vagina in natural connection with the uterus" (1927, p. 311).

Question 2. What can or must the wife of an onanistic husband do?

Response. She is bound from piety to admonish the husband to perform intercourse rightly, if there is hope of fruit and the admonition can be made without danger of grave inconvenience, for example of grave discord.¹ Yet in these cases, "toward the woman herself one must incline to severity rather than to laxity, lest it come to this, that with men rejected from the Sacraments, women indulging in onanism may be admitted everywhere by a subtle distinction."² With these things premised, one must speak thus:

I. If the husband is about to commit natural onanism, the wife:

1. Is not bound to render the debt. Some indeed judge that the wife is bound to this, because the husband asks the debt by right; but it is not sufficiently evident that the wife is bound to grant intercourse, that is, a mutual act, which she foresees is going to be deprived by the husband of an essential and due element.

2. She can render the debt, at least for a grave cause. The reason is that the wife on her part gives cooperation to a lawful thing, namely to intercourse insofar as it is rightly begun, not insofar as it is broken off; on the other hand, she is not bound, with grave inconvenience, to impede the sin of the husband. There are added the responses of the Sacred Penitentiary.³ Indeed, in practice perhaps not even a grave cause is required; this is drawn from the fact that the wife, with regard to the right of the husband, is with equal probability bound to render it (St. Alphonsus VI, 947).

3. She can ask the debt for a grave cause, because she asks, as is supposed, for right intercourse, nor is she bound to impede the sin of the husband with grave inconvenience. That a grave cause is required is deduced from the fact that, when the husband is not urging his right, she cooperates with the sin of the husband, which from piety she is bound to forestall (St. Alphonsus, loc. cit.). The wife has a grave cause "if she herself were in danger of incontinence; or if otherwise she would have to be deprived of her right of asking more than once or twice, with perpetual scruple whether there is a sufficiently grave inconvenience for her, or whether then she could contain herself" (St. Alphonsus VI, 947).

II. If the husband, with an English cloak employed, is going to have intercourse, the wife can neither ask nor render the debt, but is bound to resist as a woman who is oppressed. Therefore only for a most grave cause, namely for fear of death or of an evil equivalent to it, would it be lawful for her not to resist the oppressor. The reason is that in the case the act is totally vitiated from the beginning. So also the responses of the Holy Office⁴ and of the Sacred Penitentiary.⁵

Corollary. As often as the wife lawfully asks or renders the debt, she also lawfully excites herself and consents to the pleasure annexed to her act.

¹ Sacred Penitentiary, November 15, 1816; February 1, 1823.

² Instruction of the Bishops of Belgium, June 2, 1909.

³ The Sacred Penitentiary, on November 15, 1816, responded: "Approved and serious moral theologians agree in this, that ... it is lawful for a wife to render the debt, namely to a man asking onanistically, if from her denial she is going to be badly treated by the man and can fear grave inconvenience to herself from it; for in this case, they say, the wife is not judged to cooperate formally in the sin of her husband, but only to permit it for a just and reasonable cause. Nevertheless let the petitioner admonish a wife of this sort that she not cease prudently to admonish her husband to desist from this shamefulness." Likewise the same Sacred Penitentiary, on February 1, 1823, to the question, "Bertha has a husband whom by constant experience she knows to be an onanist. In vain she has tried all means to withdraw him from so unspeakable a crime; indeed very grave or at least grave evils now probably threaten her, so that either she must incur these evils or flee from the house of her husband unless she sometimes permits the abuse of marriage," responded, I say, to the said question: "Since in the proposed case the woman on her part does nothing against nature and gives cooperation to a lawful thing, while the whole disorder of the act proceeds from the malice of the husband, who instead of consummating withdraws himself and pours out outside the vessel, therefore if the woman, after due admonitions, accomplishes nothing, while the husband insists by threatening beatings or death or other most grave evils, she herself will be able, as approved theologians teach, to behave permissively without sin, since in these circumstances she simply permits the sin of the husband, and does so from a grave cause which excuses her, because charity, by which she is bound to impede it, does not oblige with so great an inconvenience." Finally, on April 3, 1916, the Sacred Penitentiary declared: "If the husband in the use of marriage wishes to commit the crime of Onan, namely by pouring out the semen outside the vessel after intercourse has been begun, and likewise threatens the wife with death or grave molestations unless she accommodates herself to his perverse will, the wife, according to the opinion of approved theologians, can lawfully in this case have intercourse thus with her husband, since she on her part gives cooperation to a lawful thing and action, while she permits the sin of the husband from a grave cause which excuses her; because charity by which she would be bound to impede it does not oblige with so great an inconvenience."

⁴ May 21, 1851; April 19, 1853.

⁵ The Sacred Penitentiary, on June 3, 1916, rescripted these things:

1. Whether a woman, in a case in which the husband wishes to use an instrument for exercising onanism, is bound to positive resistance?

2. If negatively, whether reasons equally grave as for natural onanism, without an instrument, suffice to make passive resistance honorable on the part of the woman, or rather whether most grave reasons are altogether necessary?

3. Whether, so that this whole matter may be developed and taught by a safer path, a man using such instruments ought truly to be equated with an oppressor, to whom therefore the woman ought to oppose that resistance which a virgin must oppose to an invader.

The response was:

To the first: Affirmatively.

To the second: Provision has been made in the first.

To the third: Affirmatively.

3. Remedies against onanism.¹

a. First of all, let it be indicated that onanism is a most grave sin, since it is opposed to the primary end of marriage and of the conjugal act.

b. Let the effects of onanism be prudently explained, effects which not so rarely are punished by God in the offspring born, and which besides easily harm health, especially by weakening the nervous system (n. 109).

c. If the reason for onanism is difficulty in feeding and educating more numerous offspring, confidence in God should be stirred up. Moreover, appeal should be made to a fact confirmed by daily experience: that numerous families, generally speaking, are happier than others; for in them the natural energies of the members are splendidly exercised; in them a greater union and manly love reign.

d. If death from a new childbirth is feared, it can generally be said that the danger is easily exaggerated by some physicians; besides, the medical art has so advanced that the danger can now commonly be averted.

e. Finally, those things can prudently be suggested which we are going to say in n. 117 about a time less apt for fecundation.

¹ Cf. Instruction of the Bishops of Belgium, June 2, 1909; Ned. Kath. Stemmen, 1909, p. 356.

4. The manner of treating onanists,¹ although it ought to be done according to the general rules, is usually assigned specially on account of the importance of the matter - for there is question of a crime very harmful and spreading most widely.

a. With regard to the interrogation to be made, the confessor should regularly ask penitents prudently,² if there is a founded suspicion that they are addicted to onanism; for example, by asking whether anything troubles their conscience regarding marriage, or even more clearly, whether regarding the number of children they submit themselves to the divine Will.

b. With regard to the admonition to be made, observe these things:

alpha. The confessor, as is clear, can never positively permit onanism.

beta. One who is doubtful already lacks good faith; hence one who asks the confessor should be taught the gravity of the sin.

gamma. When good faith occurs, the penitent should be admonished according to the common rules of admonition; that is, he should be instructed if there is hope of fruit, or if from silence the common good can suffer detriment. He should be left in good faith if hope of fruit is absent and the common good is not exposed to danger by silence. The common good is exposed to danger if it is feared that the silence of the confessor will become widely known.

Nevertheless, note that good faith rarely occurs, both because the vice is repugnant to the natural inclination of completing intercourse, and because the faithful are forewarned against that vice both by books and newspapers, both by sermons and instructions. Sometimes, however, especially if the wife is ill or grave danger is feared from a new childbirth, it can happen that the penitent, more easily indeed the wife, is in good faith.

c. With regard to the remedies against onanism to be impressed upon the penitent, cf. what was said under 3, n. 112.

¹ Cf. Instruction of the Bishops of Belgium, June 2, 1909; N. K. Stemmen, 1909, p. 359.

² Cf. Holy Office, May 21, 1851; Sacred Penitentiary, March 10, 1886, to the question: "When there is a founded suspicion that a penitent who is wholly silent about onanism is addicted to this crime, is it lawful for the confessor to abstain from prudent and discreet interrogation, because he foresees that many will be disturbed out of good faith and many will abandon the Sacraments? Or rather is the confessor bound to ask prudently and discreetly?" It responded: "Considering that the unspeakable vice of which there is question in the case has spread widely, ... regularly, negatively to the first part, affirmatively to the second."

VI. Incomplete intercourse.

1. With regard to it, it is first asked whether intercourse of this sort is of itself apt for generation, in other words, whether conception follows from it of itself or only accidentally. If it is not of itself apt for generation, it is intrinsically evil; indeed, those who cannot perform intercourse more perfectly labor under impotence. Now the said intercourse, in our opinion, is of itself apt for generation. This is first deduced from the fact that intercourse which, as to its substance, follows the manner indicated by nature ought to be judged of itself apt for generation. But incomplete intercourse, as to its substance, seems to follow the manner indicated by nature. For it involves some penetration of the vagina; moreover, a more perfect or less perfect penetration does not seem to differ except according to more and less, or they are judged substantially similar to each other. Then - what we have already noted - if the contrary opinion is admitted, those who cannot have intercourse more perfectly would be impotent; and no theologian up to now has taught this. Therefore it suffices for an act of itself apt for generation that one infuse semen into a vagina which is not substantially vitiated.¹ Nevertheless:

2. Incomplete intercourse, although of itself apt for generation, nevertheless is of itself unlawful. This seems first to be deduced from the declaration of the Holy Office dated November 23, 1923. The Holy Office, to the questions II: "Whether a confessor is to be censured who, after all remedies for turning a penitent abusing marriage away from this evil have been tried in vain, teaches him to exercise incomplete intercourse in order to forestall mortal sins. III: Whether a confessor is to be censured who, in the circumstances under II, advises incomplete intercourse already otherwise known to the penitent, or, when the penitent asks whether this manner is lawful, answers simply that it is lawful, without any restriction or explanation"; to these questions the Sacred Congregation responded: "To II and III, affirmatively." Now this declaration is not well understood if you admit that incomplete intercourse is of itself lawful. There is added the authority of theologians; for, as far as I know, no author declares the said intercourse immune from every fault. There is added a twofold reason. First, intercourse ought to be done in the manner which nature itself teaches. But the figure and form, construction and dimensions, which the Author of nature gave to the genital apparatus both of the man and of the woman, demonstrate that intercourse is consonant with nature only when the man has introduced the member so deeply into the wife's vagina that the glans or summit of the member, together with the opening through which sperm is ejaculated, reaches the bottom of the vagina, to the neck of the uterus, and is carried wholly before the orifice of the uterus, into which the ejaculated semen can immediately enter.² Then, true disorder is to choose a manner of having intercourse which renders notably less probable the attainment of the end to which the use of semen must be ordered under grave obligation. Nevertheless, since the act remains of itself apt for generation, it is not evident that there is a grave disorder or a substantial inversion of order.

3. Incomplete intercourse is excused by impossibility of having intercourse more perfectly, grave pain if intercourse is had more perfectly, and so forth; but not by more numerous offspring, since this inconvenience is intrinsic to perfect intercourse. Hence the Holy Office on November 23, 1923 rightly responded negatively to the question: "Whether it can be tolerated that confessors of their own accord teach the practice of incomplete intercourse and advise it indiscriminately to all penitents who fear lest more numerous offspring be born."

¹ According to Dr. Batenburg (Brief aan Dr. Ausems), incomplete intercourse is not of itself apt for generation: first, because semen infused at the entrance of the vagina, on account of the upper walls of the vagina, which in intercourse of this sort remain closed or rather joined to each other, can scarcely ascend; then, because the vaginal fluid, in which case the neospermata are enveloped, easily and quickly corrupts them. From this, he says, conception follows much more often from complete intercourse than from incomplete intercourse. But even if the assertions were proved, nevertheless they would not prevent the act, according to what was set forth above, from being substantially placed; and once this is admitted, it must be said that the end is more often not obtained accidentally only, not of itself.

² Taskin, apud Ned. Kath. Stemmen, 1923, p. 198 sq.

VII. Deposition of semen outside the vagina - that is, at the exterior part of the vulva, or, after the vulva has been penetrated, at the mouth of the vagina - is not of itself apt for generation, and therefore must be called true pollution. For, first, ch. 6, tit. 15, de frigidis et maleficiatis, declares that an impediment of impotence is had if the man cannot penetrate the woman's vagina. Then, an act which in no way follows the manner indicated by nature cannot be judged of itself apt for generation. But the act of which there is question in no way follows the manner indicated by nature, since it excludes every penetration of the vagina. Hence those who cannot have intercourse more perfectly are impotent; and those who deliberately have intercourse in this way sin gravely. This, however, does not prevent those who have tried in vain to penetrate the vagina, as long as there is some hope of penetrating, from being able to try it again (St. Alphonsus VI, 954, dub. 2).

VIII. An act committed after intercourse. I speak of vaginal washings,¹ which indeed are commonly done for various reasons, for example so that conception may be impeded, or so that cleanliness or health may be cared for. Now:

1. Vaginal washings cannot be done with the intention that conception be impeded; for this is the same as directly expelling the semen and therefore directly impeding the good of the species (n. 44). Nor are they lawful so that cleanliness may be cared for, if the intended cleanliness is obtained precisely through the expulsion of the semen: both because evils are not to be done so that good things may come about, and because the said privation of cleanliness is intrinsic to intercourse. Nor are they permitted so that cleanliness may be cared for in the case in which cleanliness is not obtained precisely through expulsion of the semen, because the good effect does not correspond to the evil effect.

2. Outside the aforesaid cases, one must speak thus:

a. Vaginal washings can be done at the time when the semen remaining in the vagina can be considered corrupted, that is, two hours after intercourse. Namely, it is already rather commonly admitted by experts that all spermatozoa remaining in the vagina after intercourse are, at least by that time, corrupted by the reacting vaginal secretions.²

b. For a grave cause, washings can be done before the time indicated under 1, even immediately after intercourse. This must be said in view of the principles which regard an act with a double effect. The case would occur, for example, if a woman were forced to admit intercourse by a man infected with syphilis or another contagious disease, and the washing were a means of driving away the danger of infection. In that case there would be an action with a double effect following equally immediately: one effect would be the driving away or sterilization of bacilli, that is, of spirochetes producing infection; the other, the driving away or sterilization of semen.³ Yet take care to note that a grave cause is also required when the danger of losing all the semen has ceased, that is, four or five minutes after intercourse;⁴ for even the loss of part of the semen seems grave in itself, except with sufficient probability in the case in which the partial loss of semen happens on the occasion of an act of itself ordered to generation (n. 83). Besides, the things said about a grave cause which would permit a washing are almost merely theoretical. For a grave cause must commonly be sought from a motive of health. Now vaginal washings regularly harm health, far from favoring it;⁵ nor do they avert the infection of which mention was made above.⁶ There is added the fact that washings, in the case in which they are useful, must be done by an expert.⁷

¹ Cf. Ned. Kath. Stemmen, 1922, p. 43; R. K. Artsenblad, June 1927.

² Van Bouwdijk-Bastiaanse, however, judges that living spermatozoa are commonly still found in the vagina after three hours.

³ N. K. Stemmen, loc. cit.

⁴ As is evident from the latest experiments, immediately after coitus spermatozoa already begin to enter the neck or cervix of the uterus. They have been found four or five minutes afterward. Now neither in the neck of the uterus, and much less in the uterus itself, can they be reached by that irrigation which women can perform by themselves without a physician (N. K. Stemmen, loc. cit.).

⁵ R. K. Artsenblad, 1927, pp. 133-147.

⁶ R. K. Artsenblad, 1927, pp. 147-153.

⁷ R. K. Artsenblad, loc. cit.

IX. Doubts and Responses.

1. Spouses lawfully abstain from intercourse at the time when fecundation is judged easier, and perform it at another time.¹ Now conception is less probable: according to some, from the fifteenth day after menstruation has begun until a few days (three or four) before it; according to others, only during the time which immediately follows the cessation of the menses, while the week preceding the menses would be more favorable to fecundation; according to others, during the week which follows and the week which precedes the menses. And so this matter is so uncertain that it has scarcely any practical value.²

2. The wife does not sin by rising or urinating immediately after intercourse, because, once intercourse has ended, the vaginal walls immediately adhere to one another, so that the semen is not expelled. She would sin, however, if she acted in this way with the intention that the semen be expelled (St. Alphonsus VI, 954).

3. Spouses who in the act of intercourse restrain semination do not sin, provided that each consents and neither is exposed to danger of pollution. The reason is that that penetration of the female vessel is then reputed an incomplete mutual act, or even an essential part of perfect intercourse; married persons have a right to these things. I said provided that each consents, because each has a right to the semination of the partner. I said provided that neither is exposed to danger of pollution. But since that danger is easily present, in practice this cannot be permitted except to those who know by experience that the danger of pollution is absent (St. Alphonsus VI, 918; n. 101).

4. The husband sins gravely who without a just cause restrains semination after the wife has seminated or is prepared to seminate. The reason is "because then he himself is the cause that the semen of the wife is wasted" (St. Alphonsus VI, 918), that is, deprived of its end. The wife, however, who does not consent to the husband's manner of acting, can seminate, since from begun intercourse, that is, from penetration of the vagina, she seems to receive a right to semination. - A wife who restrains semination after the husband has seminated does not sin gravely, except in the case in which the husband does not consent. For since the semination of the wife is not necessary for generation, she, by restraining semination, is not the cause that the husband's semen is wasted, that is, deprived of its end.

5. The wife can excite herself to semination immediately after intercourse rightly had, because in this case the wife's semination, which is the complement of intercourse, is sufficiently united with the act of the husband (St. Alphonsus VI, 919). The same, for the same reason, must be said about the wife's semination immediately before intercourse.

¹ Sacred Penitentiary, June 16, 1880.

² Cf. Capellmann-Bergmann, Pastoralmedizin, p. 289 sq.; Antonelli, Medicina pastoralis, I, n. 114.

Question. Whether the wife can also seminate immediately before and immediately after intercourse to be performed or already performed onanistically.

Response I. If there is question of intercourse to be had or already had onanistically, but in the natural manner, the wife lawfully excites herself immediately before the intercourse to be had. For on the one hand, morally speaking, it is of itself the same thing to seminate immediately before as during the penetration itself; on the other hand, it must be attributed to the husband, as we suppose, that the wife's semination will be frustrated of its end. Otherwise one must speak of excitation immediately after intercourse has been performed, because in this case the wife herself frustrates her semination of its end. Nor should you say that the wife, by force of the intercourse had, has received a right to semination; for she cannot receive a right to a semination whose frustration she herself will be the cause of. Now if she seminated after intercourse had been broken off, she herself would frustrate the semination. Yet it will often be preferable to leave the wife in good faith.

Response II. If there is question of intercourse to be had or already had onanistically and in the artificial manner, the wife can in no way seminate, because such intercourse is totally vitiated from the beginning (n. 111).

Corollary. From what has been set forth there follows that, with respect to things lawful and unlawful for spouses, these rules are rightly established by theologians:

1. What is according to the end of marriage is lawful, such as intercourse and accessory acts, whether mutual or solitary, referred to that intercourse now to be had.

2. What is against the primary end of marriage is gravely evil, such as pollution and its grave danger admitted without a sufficient cause, etc.

3. What is apart from the end is either lightly prohibited, such as an unnatural position, or in itself not prohibited in any way, such as mutual acts, and solitary acts, as others add, not referred to intercourse now to be had.

Contraception.—Contraception in all its forms (onanism, condonism, vaginal irrigation, spermatocide) is a grave crime.

(a) It is an Injury to God.—Marriage was instituted by God to propagate the human race (Gen., i. 27, 28) and to bless homes with children (Ps., cxxvi, cxxvii), and He has made it a sacred institution and a Sacrament. Contraception defeats the ends of marriage and degrades it to the level of a mere instrument of carnal gratification. The hatred of God for this sin appears in general from the horror with which Scripture speaks of unnatural lust, and in particular from the case of Onan, whose sin is called detestable and whom God slew in punishment (Gen., xxxviii. 10).

(b) It is an Injury to Society.—The perpetuation of the human race is endangered as soon as marriage is abused as to its natural end. Hence, after the crime of homicide which destroys human life already in existence, contraception seems to rank next in enormity, since it prevents human life from coming into existence. This vice spreads moral degeneracy and decay from the home itself, and is rightly called race-suicide, since it depopulates and destroys the nation by the act of its own people.

(c) It is an Injury to the Family.—The happiness and success of the home depend chiefly on the respect which its members have one for the other and on the cultivation of the sturdy virtues that strengthen character. The husband and wife who practise onanism or other similar carnal vices cannot have the mutual respect they should have; the wife is deprived of the treasure of her modesty and is treated as a prostitute rather than as an honored wife and mother, and the husband is brutalized by the removal of the natural restraint to his sex passion. Such self-indulgent persons will either selfishly neglect the one or two children they may have, or will spoil them for life by the luxury and laziness in which they are reared.

(d) It is an Injury to the Individual.—As concerns the body, there is a perversion of the sex act from its definite use and specific end, and hence contraception has been described as “reciprocal masturbation.” As regards the soul, its higher goods of will and intellect are subordinated by the contraceptionist to the delight of passion, the lower impulses are greatly strengthened and self-control made more and more difficult, and the spiritual objectives that should prompt a rational creature are sacrificed for the passing gratification that moves the beasts.

Some Arguments of Neo-Malthusians and Other Advocates of Contraception.—(a) Necessity for the Individual.—“This practice is demanded by comfort (e.g., in order to have a good and easy time, to have more opportunity for pleasures and occupations outside the home, to preserve form and beauty, to escape the troubles of child-bearing and child-rearing), or by utility (e.g., in order that suffering wives be freed from the slavery of excessive child-bearing, in order that children receive more attention and care than is possible in large families).” This argument from comfort is unworthy of any but a pagan or materialist, for the end of existence is something higher than pleasure or escape from all hardship. But even if happiness alone be considered, the childless home is not the most cheerful, and it often happens that parents who have sinfully limited their parenthood will lose an only child and be left sterile and desolate. The argument from utility proves only that sometimes (not often) it is inadvisable for a couple to have any or many children, but it does not prove that family limitation through means forbidden by the laws of God and of nature is permissible. The normal woman is not harmed but helped by child-bearing, whereas onanism and other unnatural vices are fearfully damaging both to mental and physical health. Experience too shows that mothers of five or more children live longer, and that children from large families are very often superior in qualities and achievements and stand a better chance in life. Exceptions only emphasize the rule.

(b) Necessity for the Family.—“Large families are impossible to many persons because the high cost of children today (expenses for clothing, food, medical care, schooling, etc.) is beyond their means.” The inability to support many children is often due to extravagance or to insufficient wages, and the remedy lies in prudent economy or in improvement of the economic condition of workers, not in the abuse of marriage. The weakness of the objection is shown from the fact that race-suicide is more common among the well-to-do than among the poorer classes. However, in a genuine case of inability to maintain a large family, limitation of children is a duty, but not by means of the sin of contraception or onanism.

(c) Necessity for the Community.—“The cause of unemployment, destitution, famine and war is the overpopulation of the world. Moreover, if the poorer classes would practise contraception and the better-to-do classes have larger families, the standard of living of the former would be raised, the culture of the latter would be preserved, and the quality of the whole race be greatly improved.” The resources of the earth are easily adequate to support many times the present population, and the misfortunes referred to are due, not to the number of people who inhabit the earth, but to accident or to human greed or imprudence. The eugenic argument is a vain dream, for the history of nations and modern facts show that the ideal of race improvement makes little appeal when the easier way of indulgence has been learned. As said above, it is the wealthy and educated classes who have the fewest children.

(d) Necessity of a Moral Kind.—“Contraception is a useful control of nature similar to that employed by physicians, surgeons and other scientists; it is not a contradiction of nature, since it preserves the end of the sexual faculty in expressing physical love. The motives of those who use it are not necessarily carnal, but may be of a very Christian kind (e.g., the need of limitation of family in order the better to practise one’s vocation, or in order to spare one’s wife, or to keep her from abortion), and they may sincerely believe it to be lawful.” Contraception does not control, but defeats nature, by voluntarily frustrating the primary end which nature has in view, and, if permitted, it logically leads to every kind of sensual indulgence. The motives or conscience of those who use it cannot change its character, for the end does not justify the means and a wrong conscience does not change the law. Those who have not been spoiled or misled by contraceptive propaganda or advice, instinctively regard artificial birth-control as well as onanism with disgust.

Is Birth-Control Ever Lawful?—(a) If this refers to an end (viz., the limitation of the number of children or the spacing of their arrival), it is not unlawful in itself (see 2617); and it is sometimes a duty, as when the wife is in very poor health or the family is unable to take care of more. But in view of the decline and deterioration in populations today, it seems that couples who are able to bring up children well should consider it a duty to the common welfare to have at least four children, and it should be easy for many to have at least a dozen children. The example of those married persons of means who are unable to have a number of children of their own, but who adopt or raise orphaned little ones, is very commendable.

(b) If birth control refers to a means of family limitation, it is lawful when that means is continence or abstinence from marital relations, not if it is onanism or the use of mechanical or chemical means to prevent conception. The objection that husbands cannot restrain themselves is really an insult to God’s grace and is contradicted by numerous facts. A man of manly character should be ashamed to admit that he is the slave of passion, and the fact that God commands chastity and that millions obey Him both in the wedded and single state is sufficient proof that, even though hard, sexual abstinence is not impossible, if there is a real resolve and the right means are employed, such as rooming apart and concentration on other and higher things.

Continence or abstinence is counselled by the Church should conditions make the conception of children inadvisable. It is counselled, not commanded, since it involves heroic sacrifice which makes it all the more meritorious and praiseworthy: “It is wronging men and women of our times to deem them incapable of continuous heroism. Today, for many reasons—perhaps with the goad of hard necessity and even sometimes in the service of injustice—heroism is exercised to a degree and to an extent which would have been thought impossible in days gone by. Why. then, should this heroism, if the circumstances really demand it, stop at the borders established by the passions and inclinations of nature? The answer is clear. The man who does not want to dominate himself is incapable of so doing. He who believes he can do so, counting merely on his own strength without seeking sincerely and perseveringly help from God, will remain miserably disillusioned” (Pope Pius XII, Allocution to the Italian Catholic Union of Midwives, Oct. 29, 1951).

Another lawful means of family limitation is “periodic continence” or “rhythm,” the deliberate avoidance of conception by restricting intercourse, temporarily or permanently, to the days of natural sterility on the part of the wife. Many of the faithful are under the impression that the system has received the unqualified approval of the Church, that it constitutes a form of “Catholic Birth-Control.” This is not completely true.

All theologians agree that the use of marriage during the sterile period is not per se illicit. The act is performed in the natural way; nothing has been done positively to avoid conception; and the secondary ends of matrimony, mutual love and the quieting of temptation, have been fostered. “If the carrying out of this theory means nothing more than that the couple can make use of their matrimonial rights on the days of natural sterility, too, there is nothing against it, for by so doing they neither hinder nor injure in any way the consummation of the natural act and its further natural consequences” (Pope Pius XII, ibid.).

“If, however, there is further question—that is, of permitting the conjugal act on those days exclusively—then the conduct of the married couple must be examined more closely” (ibid).

The following points summarize papal teaching on this aspect:

1. A premarital agreement to restrict the marital right and not merely the use to sterile periods, implies an essential defect in matrimonial consent and renders the marriage invalid. 2) The practice is not morally justified simply because the nature of the marital act is not violated and the couple are prepared to accept and rear children born despite their precautions. 3) Serious motives, (medical, eugenic, economic and social), must be present to justify this practice. When present, they can exempt for a long time, perhaps even for the duration of the marriage, from the positive obligations of the married state. 4) The married state imposes on those who perform the marital act the positive obligation of helping to conserve the human race. Accordingly, to make use of the marital act continuously and without serious reason to withdraw from its primary obligation would be a sin against the very meaning of conjugal life (ibid.).

Pope Pius explicitly confirmed the common teaching of theologians: 1) Rhythm, by mutual consent, for proportionate reasons, and with due safeguards against dangers would be licit. 2) Without a good reason, the practice would involve some degree of culpability. Not expressly confirmed, but simply an expression of common moral principles is the common agreement: 3) That the sin could be mortal by reason of injustice, grave danger of incontinence, serious family discord, etc.

Since the Allocution, the more common opinion in this country asserts that the Holy Father taught: 1) that married people who use their marital right have a duty to procreate; 2) that this duty is binding under pain of sin; 3) there are, however, reasons that excuse the couples from this obligation and, should they exist for the whole of married life, the obligation does not bind them at all; 4) the sin does not consist in the exercise of marital rights during the sterile periods; but in abstention from intercourse during the fertile periods precisely to avoid conception, when the couple could have and should have made its positive contribution to society. Sin is present when the practice is unjustifiedly undertaken; 5) the formal malice of illicit periodic continence is not against the sixth commandment; i.e., against the procreation of children or the use of the generative faculty, but against the seventh commandment, i.e., against social justice. The couple is not making its contribution to the common good of society; 6) from 4 and 5 above, it follows that the individual acts of intercourse during a period of unjust practice of rhythm do not constitute numerically distinct sins. Rather, granting the continuance of a single will act to practice rhythm, there is one sin for the whole period of illicit abstention during the fertile periods.

Since the Pope abstained from an explicit statement on the gravity of the sin, the controversy of whether the practice intrinsically is a mortal sin or not continued. The opinion in this country which holds the greatest authority states that mortal sin is involved in the case of continued practice with a total exclusion of children and frequent use of marital rights during the sterile period.

Diversity of opinion has arisen as to the means of estimating when a serious sin has been committed. Some have used a temporal norm, e.g., unjustified use of rhythm for five or six years would constitute a serious matter. Undoubtedly most of the proponents of this norm would not accuse a couple of certain mortal sin if they already have one or more children; after that, indefinite use of the practice without excusing causes would not be a mortal sin. (This is admitted by most theologians.) Others have proposed a numerical norm as a basis to determine whether or not a couple has made its contribution to the conservation of the race. Concretely the proponents of this theory regard four or five children as sufficient to satisfy the obligation in such a way;

a) that the use of rhythm to limit the family to this number is licit provided the couple is willing and morally able to practice it;

b) that the limitation through rhythm to less than four requires a serious justifying cause. The intention involved to prevent conception would be seriously sinful in itself, since it causes great harm to the common good and involves in practice subordination of the primary to the secondary end or ends of matrimony. At the present time this opinion seems to be more favored in America than the first which places the gravity of the sin in the unjustified practice of rhythm for five years. (For a survey of recent opinion, see the Conference Bulletin of the Archdiocese of New York, Vol. XXXIV, No. 1, pp. 36 ff.)

On the other hand, some European theologians have denied that the practice constitutes a mortal sin in itself, independently of circumstances such as injustice and danger of incontinence.

The present state of opinion, then, is definitely undecided and calls for caution both in dealing too severely with penitents or too readily recommending the practice. The response of the Sacred Penitentiary of June 16, 1880, affords a safe guide in practice: “Married couples who use their marriage rights in the aforesaid manner are not to be disturbed, and the confessor may suggest the opinion in question, cautiously, however, to those married people whom he has tried in vain to dissuade from the detestable crime of onanism.”

As to the theological censure to be attached to “rhythm,” it is not approved, nor recommended, but seems to be tolerated for sufficiently grave reasons. “Instead of being freely taught and commended, it is rather to be tolerated as an extreme remedy or means of preventing sin” (Official Monitum, Patrick Cardinal Hayes, Sept. 8, 1936, Conference Bulletin of Archdiocese of New York, Volume XIV, No. 2, p. 78).

1. Marina, after marriage had been entered, was able to complete intercourse the first time not without grave difficulty. For it could not be completed otherwise than by exciting herself, in the very approach of the husband, even to seminal emission, namely before intercourse was in reality completed. The same difficulty always persevered because of narrowness of the organ, whence unless she does that, conjugal intercourse is impossible for her, or not possible without grave pain. She often explained the matter to her confessors. Some told her that it is permitted to her to excite herself thus even to seminal emission, immediately before the intercourse itself, just as it would be permitted to excite herself in the same way immediately after intercourse. But others said that it is by no means permitted thus to excite herself immediately before the intercourse itself, and added that the marriage, in the case, is null on account of impotence, since intercourse is not possible except by a means altogether illicit.

Q. What as to the case?

R. That a marriage of this sort was null on account of the impotence of the woman can indeed in no way be admitted. For in fact intercourse was completed, as appears from the case; and accordingly this marriage cannot be null from impotence, which impotence is for coition simply, and not for coition easily or with difficulty, with pain or without pain. And that impotence which is present in the case, whatever it is, can rightly be removed, and in fact is removed, without bodily danger and by a remedy otherwise licit, as will soon be explained. For nullity by reason of impotence in the case could not reasonably have been affirmed otherwise by those confessors, except insofar as they thought that that manner of congress was illicit, and accordingly that the impotence in the case is not removed except by an illicit means.

But as to the discord of the confessors concerning that excitation immediately before intercourse, perhaps they would be brought to concord if some explained their mind rightly to others. For if that immediately before is taken in a certain gross way and broad meaning, so that namely the woman, before the coition itself, indeed before the very approach of the husband, excites herself even to perfect seminal emission or pollution, this indeed appears altogether illicit. For that act, in reality, as a whole and entire thing, is in itself fully perfect independently of intercourse, and accordingly truly has the nature of pollution. And if afterward intercourse in fact follows, as far as concerns the very nature of such an act, this following intercourse is not related per se to that prior excitation as its natural perfection and natural complement, but that intercourse is related merely per accidens. But in such a case it is not really had that that excitation is done immediately before the intercourse itself, since in reality other actions intervene between this and that, and accordingly that immediately before is taken in a broad and gross way.

But if that immediately before the intercourse itself is taken properly and strictly, so that the aforesaid excitation has place in the very approach of the husband to the wife, and not before it - which approach alone is that which can truly and properly be understood immediately before the intercourse itself - then the grave illicitness of that excitation does not appear, so that it cannot be permitted without a grave and proportionate cause. The brief and urgent reason seems to be that that excitation is then related to the intercourse itself not at all per accidens, but on the contrary per se, and is related only to the intercourse, since it is in reality the beginning and commencement of the intercourse itself. And only this beginning and commencement of intercourse immediately precedes the intercourse itself, not another. The same assertion is confirmed from the authority of theologians. For there is truly no one who denies the illicitness of an excitation of this sort on the part of the wife in the intercourse itself now begun.

For 1. although theologians commonly do not teach this explicitly, because they do not treat this question, supposing that the woman is always of a colder nature, nevertheless they seem at least to intimate this implicitly, when they permit the wife before the act "to prepare herself for intercourse by touches." St. Alphonsus, n. 919. Indeed, such preparation by its nature progresses even to seminal emission, which can be confirmed from the very comparison which the Holy Doctor makes in l. c., which otherwise would prove nothing at all: "just as the wife can prepare herself for intercourse by touches, so also she can complete the act of intercourse," namely after the husband has withdrawn himself. And the same is also evinced from the other reason which the Holy Doctor adds: namely, that the wife can, after the husband has withdrawn himself, immediately excite herself by touches to seminal emission, because that seminal emission of the woman contributes much to generation. Now, from physiology and the opinion of physicians, that excitation contributes still more both to the marital act and to generation itself, if it is done immediately beforehand, namely in the very approach of the husband and in the commencement of intercourse. Pont., de Matr., l. 10, c. 11, n. 5; Giribaldi, tr. 10, de Sacr. Matr., c. 19, d. 7, n. 41, 47.

2. The principle commonly admitted by theologians is: "It is not necessary that each spouse have seminal emission at the same time." Sanchez, de Matr., l. 9, d. 17, n. 9. The husband can have emission first and then the wife; the wife can have emission first and then the husband, in the conjugal act. Cf. St. Alph., l. 6, n. 918, 919. Hence it is commonly deduced that immediately after the conjugal act also the wife can have emission, because that emission of the wife is had, the emission of the husband being supposed, as the complement of the conjugal act. Now from this it also follows, by logical deduction, that immediately before, in the very approach of the husband, the wife can have emission, since then the commencement of intercourse is had, which, the intercourse having been carried out, is completed and perfected by the emission of the husband. But attending to physiological doctrines concerning this matter, that improper emission of the woman pertains rather to the proximate and immediate preparation and disposition of the conjugal act and its commencement than to its complement. Moreover, it is more related to intercourse, and is more a preparation and commencement of intercourse, if it is done immediately before, while namely the husband is in that which completes coition and is already at the mouth of the woman's vagina, than if it is done immediately after, namely, as theologians commonly say, after the husband has withdrawn himself; for intercourse then is no longer had in any way, and nevertheless the emission of the woman is regarded by theologians as the complement of intercourse.

3. Besides, the conjugal act consists in this: that by marital congress the husband and wife become one flesh through the mingling of seeds. This indeed does not prevent the woman who did not have seminal emission in the marital congress, after that congress has now ceased, from having emission immediately afterward, because the mingling of seeds is still had by force of the same marital congress. But the same is verified altogether, and much more, if immediately before that congress, the woman, preparing and disposing herself proximately for it, namely in its very beginning and commencement, has emission; for, the congress itself immediately following after from this proximate preparation and beginning of the congress, the mingling of seeds is now had by force of the same conjugal congress.

It is added that, according to the opinion now commonly admitted, it is permitted to the husband to institute imperfect intercourse, that is, only to begin intercourse, and by this beginning of intercourse, from some reasonable and sufficient cause, also to pour out seed at the external surface of the female organ, or at the mouth of the vagina. Cf. Ballerini, note to n. 855; Fr. Gury, vol. 2, p. 830 seq.; D'Annib., p. 3, a. 431, 3rd ed. Therefore a fortiori the woman can, without doing anything repugnant to nature, excite herself even to seminal emission in the beginning of the same intercourse. Sometimes indeed natural intercourse on the part of the woman is possible in no other way, nor can it be done in another way without grave pain and inconvenience to the woman; for the fibers are then naturally relaxed and dilated.

4. The same follows from another commonly admitted principle, that in order that there be mortal sin between spouses, something must be done against the good of marriage. But that act immediately before intercourse, in the very commencement of intercourse, according to the teachings of physiology, harms human generation in no way; indeed it is commonly regarded by physiologists as useful, and very useful, both to the conjugal act itself and to the generation of offspring itself. From the aforesaid principle theologians gather that, the crime of voluntary pollution outside the vessel and of sodomy being set aside, scarcely anything else can be condemned with certainty as grave fault in spouses. It is not a question here, as is clear, of sodomy, nor can there be question of pollution outside the vessel, since female emission naturally and commonly is not done outside the vessel, unless from purpose and from lasciviousness the woman procures in herself that outpouring of humor outside the vessel, and this is not the present case. Scav., 12th ed., Milan, 1874, l. 1, n. 778. Nor indeed can there be question of pollution, simply such, for this is an outpouring of seed without congress with another, so that a futile outpouring of seed is had against the order of nature. In the case at issue, the beginning of intercourse is had, and accordingly it cannot be said that that without congress with another is verified; and much more it is not verified in this case than in the other already indicated, in that aforesaid complement of intercourse. But most certainly a futile outpouring of seed is not had, since, with intercourse soon perfected, the mingling of seeds is had, the conjugal act being completed on each side. Cf. Verricelli, de Apost. Miss., tit. 18, q. 303 seqq.; Quaest. Mor. leg., tr. 4, q. 27, s. 7; Mendo, Statera, etc., d. 5, q. 18, at the end.

And from these things which precede, that also is clear which was declared by the Holy Office on 24 March 1897, namely that artificial fecundation of the woman is not licit. From which illicitness those things also which precede are in turn confirmed.

2. Candidus, a confessor, although he has a prudent suspicion that spouses use marriage onanistically, always omits interrogating those same spouses, who do not accuse themselves of that sin. For first, he considers all as constituted in good faith. Besides, he himself acts thus lest he offend the spouses.

3. Pius, a confessor, asks: 1. Whether a woman can be absolved who indeed would suffer the husband if he acted rightly in conjugal intercourse, but vehemently desires that the husband withdraw himself, because that woman fears to have offspring. 2. Whether a woman can be absolved who, in conjugal intercourse, could by her blandishments obtain from the husband that he not withdraw himself, and does not do it, because that intercourse displeases her.

4. Bertha has a husband whom she has known by constant experience to be an onanist. In vain she has tried every means to draw him back from so unspeakable a crime. Indeed, most grave, or at least grave, evils now probably threaten her, so that she must either incur these evils, or flee from the house of her husband, unless she permits at least sometimes the abuse of marriage.

5. Flavia has an onanist husband, whom she can in no way resist. After the withdrawal of the husband, since she herself is greatly aroused, she is accustomed still to excite herself by touches so that she herself may at length complete the act. Since she was doubtful concerning this matter, she questioned Doctor C. C., who responded to her that this is licit to her, since what of itself is licit to her cannot be made illicit to her by the sin of the husband alone.

Q. 1. What concerning onanism? 2. What as to the various cases?

R. To the first. Cf. I. M. V. 2, n. 1066, 1067. - To the second. The practice of Candidus cannot be approved, in always omitting to interrogate spouses, even when the abuse of marriage is prudently established. But it is altogether false that all spouses of this sort, acting badly, are in good faith. And for omitting the interrogation which otherwise must be made, the fact that the aforesaid spouses may be offended is not a sufficient reason. Sacred Penitentiary, 21 May 1851; 10 March 1886; Enchir. Moral. 1058. But the interrogation, when it ought to be made, must be made discreetly and prudently. Let the aforesaid confessor recall to mind that adage: holy things must be treated holily. And lest he exceed in interrogations, let him also weigh the words of St. Alphonsus, who in Praxis Confessariorum, § 4, n. 41, says: "But concerning the sins of spouses, with respect to the conjugal debt, ordinarily speaking, the confessor is neither held nor is it fitting to interrogate except wives, whether they have rendered it, in the more modest way in which he can. Let him be silent about the others, unless he has been questioned." Sacred Penitentiary, 8 June 1842.

To each question of Pius one must respond negatively. Sacred Penitentiary, 27 May 1847. For in the first case that woman desires a thing intrinsically evil, since the thing is contrary to the natural right of marriage. Sacred Penitentiary, 21 May 1851. But in the other case, the woman is consenting in the abuse of marriage on the part of the husband.

As regards Bertha, "since in the proposed case the woman indeed on her own part does nothing against nature, and gives work to a licit thing, but the whole disorder of the act proceeds from the malice of the husband, who, instead of consummating, withdraws himself and pours out outside the vessel; and therefore, if the woman after due admonitions accomplishes nothing, but the husband insists, threatening beatings or death or other most grave evils, she herself will be able, as approved theologians teach, to conduct herself permissively without sin, since in these circumstances of things she simply permits the sin of her husband, and that from a grave cause which excuses her; because charity, by which she is held to impede it, does not oblige with so great an inconvenience." Sacred Penitentiary, 1 Feb. 1832. - Gury, Comp., vol. 2, n. 927 seqq.; Scav., 12th ed., Milan, 1874, l. 3, n. 921, 922.

As to Flavia, the response of Doctor C. C. cannot be approved. For, given the withdrawal of the onanist husband, that act now has the true character of pollution. Hence in circumstances of this sort that act is not licit to her of itself, nor is it in any way made illicit to her by the sin of the husband. Wherefore, although the husband were not an onanist and withdrew himself from a reasonable cause, because, for example, he could not consummate the act, nevertheless the wife, thus aroused, could not for this reason then complete the act herself by her own touches. St. Alph., l. 6, n. 918, 919; I. M. 810, 811, 813.

6. Moevia, fearing to have several children, is accustomed immediately after the conjugal act to wash herself with cold water. But at the same time fearing lest this be a sin, she questions four confessors. The first responds that this is altogether illicit. The other asserts that it is simply licit. The third affirms that it is indeed illicit if it is done immediately after marital congress, or a little afterward, but by no means if it is done at least after three or four days. The fourth says that it is illicit if it is done with cold water, but by no means if it is done with hot water. Hence Moevia, after so many diverse resolutions, approaches a fifth confessor, that she may know whether she can continue in that practice, candidly asserting that she in reality has had no further child after she began to apply that washing.

Q. What as to the case?

R. First, there can be no doubt concerning the grave sin of Moevia in the aforesaid practice, from the depraved intention which she has of impeding generation, even prescinding from the very nature and force of that washing. It appears sufficiently and more than sufficiently that Moevia persists in it from the fear by which she is affected of having several children; consequently she applies it to impede conception.

But what must be thought concerning the aforesaid practice, sufficiently common? If it is considered in itself and the depraved intention is absent, since by prescription of a physician it is applied on account of infirmity, namely on account of a flux of humor which women not rarely experience.

From the opinion of physicians and physiologists, cold water either kills the germ, or certainly diminishes its fecundative power, which needs a certain determined degree of heat. For the fecundating activity of the spermatozoa is preserved by heat exceeding 30 degrees; but when the heat decreases below 20 degrees, although it is still preserved, nevertheless its energy is less. Hence washings or interior irrigations made with cold water are illicit of themselves, because they either impede generation or at least contain a sufficiently proximate danger of generation to be impeded.

Likewise, if the water, although sufficiently warm, nevertheless is not simple water but medicated water, then the case must be examined in particular; for there are certain drugs which have the same force of killing the germ or impeding generation, but others which are altogether innocuous.

Moreover, if the washing is done not only immediately, but even a little after the conjugal act, the seed is wasted and generation is impeded. It is necessary that at least a half hour, or at most three quarters, or even a whole hour have elapsed, lest generation be impeded. If besides the washing or irrigation is done not only in the vagina but also in the womb, so that water is sent by some greater pressure into the womb itself and penetrates it, the aforesaid washing and irrigation is altogether illicit, since either the germ is carried away by it or, if conception has already been made, abortion is procured. Wherefore the washing must be done only with light pressure of water, lest it pass beyond the vagina and seed be carried away from the womb or the fetus be expelled; and because, if seed still remained in the vagina, the more easily is the seed then carried away from the vagina, the greater will be the pressure of the water by which it is introduced within. But in the beginning of pregnancy it is at least prudent to abstain from washings or irrigations of this sort, since some danger of abortion can be present in them.

Hence, if due precautions are applied, both lest seed be ejected, and lest conception be impeded, and also lest abortion be procured, the aforesaid washing does not seem illicit, so that the wife must abstain from it under grave obligation, although otherwise it is altogether necessary for her on account of the infirmity which she suffers, of a flux of acrid and harmful humor. But if she could abstain from it, or at least defer it longer after the conjugal act and wait an entire day, or two or three days, it would certainly be better. Nor indeed does there appear, at least ordinarily, so urgent a reason why it is not deferred thus. Cf. Debreyne, Essai sur la Theol. Mor., p. 3, c. 1; Legrand du Saulle, Médecine Légale, Paris, 1886, pp. 265, 266, etc.

Those things which precede can be confirmed by the doctrine and authority of St. Alphonsus as to other cases very practical in this matter. 1. "Spouses indeed can from a grave cause do something from which, per accidens, an outpouring of seed follows; nevertheless they sin if in the use of marriage, or after the use, they do something by which conception is impeded or the seed conceived is rejected. The reason of the former is that generation is not impeded, not even indirectly, but it is only permitted not to take place, which is licit from a reasonable cause. The reason of the latter is that they act against the faith and principal end of marriage. Hence poverty threatening or danger from childbirth does not excuse such persons." Lig. 954.

2. Hence it is grave if a woman in the use of marriage diverts her mind to other things in order to impede conception. Lig. 918, 954. Likewise a wife will sin mortally if immediately after intercourse she urinates, or rises, or does something else, with the intention that she expel the received seed, because she frustrates the end for which seed is instituted by nature.... But it was said if the woman does this immediately and with the intention of expelling the seed; for if she did this from some necessity, for example, to avoid danger of death or the scandal of others, all say that she does not sin, just as they also agree that there is no need that the wife, after intercourse, remain long unmoved and supine, because in a short time the womb draws the seed and is closed most tightly." Lig. 954, 918.

"It seems to me indeed," says Capellmann, "to be preferable that this sin be removed from the midst by this reason: that to a woman accusing this in confession it should be answered that that manner of acting in no way helps the woman's depraved counsel. For it is certain that seed which has now penetrated into the female vessel does not flow out so easily. The walls of the vagina, after the withdrawal of the husband, are immediately composed hermetically, and therefore on account of the capillary sucking force of the touching walls it cannot happen that the seed flows out." Medicina Pastoralis, 11th ed., Aachen, 1896, p. 139.

3. Speaking of the natural position, the Holy Doctor adds these things at the end: "But Sanchez, Pontius, Palaus, and Bossius say, with Perez, Hurtado, and Aversa, that it is not mortal if, on account of a variation of position, only part of the seed falls out, the rest being retained within the vessel, sufficient for generation; which Sanchez and Bossius say sometimes happens; indeed Palaus and Pontius say that it happens almost always, and Pontius testifies that physicians assert this. But the Salamanticenses call this opinion too lax, because, as they say, to waste human seed without reasonable cause cannot be excused from mortal sin. Moreover, the Salamanticenses themselves, and Sanchez and Sporer with Aversa, say that the confessor is not held to interrogate a spouse accusing himself of this whether seed was poured out or not, because rarely, as they say, does it happen that seed is poured out; and thus I also have heard several times from those who accused themselves to me in confession of having had intercourse in an inverted manner. But those who have intercourse standing, or sitting, or with the woman above, I think to be in greater danger of pouring out the seed. But by this I do not dare to condemn the opinion of Sanchez, Pontius, Palaus, and others, as above; for they could respond to the Salamanticenses that to waste seed without a just cause, or, as the Salamanticenses ought better to have said, to permit that seed be wasted, is never licit when the seed is poured out outside the vessel of the wife, but not when it is sent within and, per accidens and not from the act itself, is wasted; because then the womb, as the aforesaid authors say, already draws what is sufficient for generation and expels the rest as superfluous." Lig. 917.

The same Capellmann, l. c., p. 151, says: "Every position, even if unnatural in intercourse,... of itself does not exceed venial fault, provided that the conjugal act can be sufficiently completed... that is, provided that introduction into the vessel and emission of seed into the vessel can take place. Infusion into the vagina is plainly sufficient. From anatomical causes direct infusion into the womb will very rarely have place; descent

(according to the law of gravity) will never happen. Reception of seed into the womb is effected partly by motions of the muscles and of the ciliated epithelium of the mucous membrane, and partly certainly by motions which are present in the spermatozoa themselves. Wherefore, in order that seed be introduced into the womb, position in intercourse is of no importance. Partial loss of seed after infusion into the vessel can indeed happen in some positions, nevertheless not so that conception is impeded by it. For it is established that the least amount of seed suffices for generation." And St. Alphonsus also says in l. c.: "Change of position does not impede generation, since the seed of the man is not received into the womb of the woman by infusion or descent, but by attraction, while the womb of itself naturally draws the virile seed."

4. "One taking or giving a potion, or effecting anything else by which conception of offspring is impeded and the spouse becomes sterile, sins mortally, whatever end this is done for, for instance, because the wife is accustomed to give birth with danger of death. The reason is that by deliberate work the seed is impeded from its natural end of generation, and it is against nature. Thus Cajetan, in 2. 2, q. 154, a. 1, ad 2; Sanchez, de Matr., l. 9, d. 20, n. 2. And it is established from C. Aliquando, 32, q. 2. V. Lig., l. 6, n. 954." Scav., 12th ed., Milan, 1874, l. 3, n. 839.

Hence consequently it must be said that it is altogether illicit to wet the mouth of the womb with alum, by whose force it is tightened and closed, enough to impede the ascent of seed into the womb, by which the ovule may be fecundated.

123. Spouses sin if before or after or in the very use they do something by which generation is impeded, because they act directly against the end of marriage.

Hence, first, the wife sins gravely by reason of the depraved intention of impeding generation, who in the act of coitus diverts her mind to other things, lest she be excited to semination, or who immediately after copulation rises or urinates. It is said by reason of the depraved intention, etc.; for the semination of the woman is not in reality necessary for generation, but only very useful for it; and since the womb in a short time draws in the semen and is very tightly closed, those various attempts to cast out the semen by rising, urinating, etc., are in reality vain and ineffectual. Hence also all agree that there is no need for the wife after copulation to remain long unmoved and lying on her back. L. l. VI. n. 954.; Debreyne, 2 p. ch. 2. art. 2. Sect. 2.

Second, spouses sin if by mutual consent the husband after begun copulation withdraws himself before semination and pours forth semen outside the vessel, in order to impede generation. This sin is called onanism, from Onan, who committed such a sin, Gen. 38. 9. 10., and it is true and properly so-called pollution, containing the special malice as it were of adultery. Cf. here n. 69. Outside marriage, however, after copulation has begun, to withdraw oneself and to pour forth semen outside the vessel has, besides the malice of consummated pollution, also the malice of begun fornication, or at least of fornication in affection. Cf. here n. 44. 103.

124. Note. "The conjugal act is lawfully interrupted, even if pollution will follow by the stirring of nature, provided there is a just cause for interrupting it, for example, if from its continuation there threatens danger of disease, or death from an enemy, or someone else intervenes." Busembaum, L. 6. n. 954.

125. Can a woman lawfully render the debt to a husband using marriage onanistically?

Resp. Diana has these words: "I say, therefore, that the man and the woman indeed sin mortally if it is done with her consent; but if she does not consent, I think that she can lawfully ask and render the debt from her husband, even if at the end of copulation he pours forth semen outside the vessel. And the reason is that, as often as I ask an act from someone which he can perform well or badly, I do not sin, nor do I provide the cause of sin; for the other acts badly by his own malice, although he could act rightly. But this whole thing proceeds in our case." Tr. 6. de Matrimon. R. 181. Cf. also ibid. R. 184. It is confirmed from various decisions of the Sacred Penitentiary and of the Holy Office: G. t. 2. n. 927. and following; Enchir. Morale 1058. 1066.

126. Is some grave extrinsic cause required, so that a woman may lawfully render the debt to an onanist husband?

Resp. Several affirm, relying chiefly on declarations of the Sacred Congregation. They list these grave causes: first, if death, blows, or grave acts of savagery are feared; second, if there is a reason to fear that the husband will have a concubine either at home or outside the home; third, if the woman knows certainly that the husband, angered by refusal, will utter blasphemies against God and religion, injuries against the confessor and priests in general, scandalous words before servants or children; fourth, a fortiori the fear of divorce, or separation, or infamy, or grave scandal. But these theologians wisely warn that it is by no means necessary that the woman repel the husband until she has experienced the acts of savagery, troubles, or other inconveniences mentioned; for then, by rendering or offering the debt, she would often not avert an evil already existing, and besides she is not bound to undergo it in order to impede the sin of her husband; it is enough, therefore, that she reasonably fear it.

But a grave extrinsic cause does not seem necessary. For, first, the responses of the Sacred Congregation do not evince the necessity of this cause, since they declare only that the woman is to be excused who renders the debt to an onanist husband from a grave cause. But they pronounce nothing concerning her who renders it without that grave extrinsic reason. Second, it is proved from the authority of St. Alphonsus, who says that a wife not only can, but even is bound more probably to render the debt to an onanist husband, without a grave reason. "The reason," he says, "is that when the fault holds itself on the part of the person asking, since he has a right to copulation, the other cannot deny the debt without injustice, if she cannot by warning him turn him away from such fault; and then it is clear that the one rendering does not even materially cooperate in that one's sin, since she does not cooperate in the semination outside the vessel, but only in the begun copulation, which of itself is altogether lawful to each." L. l. 6. n. 947. Third, the same is proved from the authority of other most grave theologians; thus Sanchez, Tamburini, Sporer, Pontas apud St. Alphonsus l. c., and D. Bouvier in the Supplement to Tr. de Matr., think, to whom can be added the very learned Struggl, de Matr. n. 83. third. Fourth, because if the woman dissents from the action of the man withdrawing himself, she is engaged in nothing except a lawful action; and precisely insofar as in that act she uses marriage, she uses her own right. For she does nothing except what, with marriage posited, she can lawfully do. She ought not to be deprived of her own right because of the malice of the husband; for the man approaching her and penetrating the vessel does not sin, but only by withdrawing himself and pouring forth semen outside the vessel, in which action the woman in no way participates and cooperates, but it is uniquely from the malice of the man. Nor is anyone bound, even by reason of charity, to yield his right, when this is not without notable inconvenience, so that another may avoid a sin which depends uniquely on his own malice. It is said that she in no way participates and cooperates; for in reality the woman only permits the sin of the man, by not denying the debt to him. The permission of sin is certainly one thing, properly speaking cooperation is another. The sin of the man is indeed not in the legitimately begun copulation, but in the cessation from it and withdrawal, with which the woman in no way cooperates. Fifth, lastly, if a grave cause is desired, it is certainly not necessary that there be a grave extrinsic cause, but an intrinsic cause suffices; for it is of itself grave for a woman who has married in order to exercise the work of marriage to abstain for a long time, and thus to be deprived of her right in an altogether grave matter. Moreover, in practice, grave extrinsic causes also are almost always had; for example, a founded fear of gravely displeasing the husband and of lacking peace in married life, etc. Gury, Cas. Cf. here n. 136. 2. n. 1106.

127. Is warning on the part of the woman necessarily required, so that she may lawfully render the debt to an onanist husband?

Resp. In the case this warning can and ought to be done only for a twofold cause: first, so that the man may be aware of the woman's dissent, lest the man become more emboldened in his perverse way of acting; and for this reason a formal warning by words is not necessarily to be made, if the husband is otherwise morally aware of the dissent of the wife, for example by the sincere displeasure and repugnance which she shows in that action. Second, the cause is that the man be drawn back from sin, by reason of charity, by which in that case the wife is bound toward the husband; and certainly for this reason a warning is to be made if it is prudently judged that it will be profitable. But if it is certainly judged that it will in no way be profitable, but rather harmful, such a warning is indeed to be omitted, because one wishing then to impede one sin would be in the cause that others also would be perpetrated, such as blasphemies against God, injuries against the confessor, against the sacraments, etc. L. l. 6. n. 944.

128. Is a woman bound to render the debt to a husband using marriage onanistically?

Resp. Negatively, at least speaking of itself and by reason of justice. The reason is that by the contract of marriage the wife did not bind herself except to the use of marriage which is of itself apt for generation. The same St. Alphonsus, who in the cited place teaches as more probable that a woman can and is bound to render the debt, nevertheless adds that she can probably and is bound to deny the debt, if she can do so without grave inconvenience. Therefore, given the probability of each opinion, the woman can, but is not bound to, render the debt. But it is said, speaking of itself and by reason of justice, because if this would be an occasion for the husband of indignation, dissension, and other more grave sins, with the grave inconvenience of the wife excluded, then by reason of charity she is bound to render the debt. L. l. 6. nn. 947. 944. Moreover the wife would also be bound to render the debt if the man, warned, promises that he will complete the act and at least sometimes completes it; for in doubt a certain right cannot be denied because of abuse. Sporer, de Matr. 513.

129. Can a wife ask the debt from an onanist husband?

Resp. Affirmatively, if there is a grave cause. The reason is that she has a right to copulation, and a sufficient reason of cooperation, or rather of permission of another's sin, is present. But the grave cause is from St. Alphonsus, l. 6. n. 947: "If she herself were in danger of incontinence, or if otherwise she would have to be deprived of her right of asking more than once or twice, with perpetual scruple whether it is a sufficiently grave inconvenience for her or not to contain herself." And with scruple excluded, it is certainly a grave inconvenience for a married woman, who has married for this end, that she might exercise the work of marriage, to abstain for a long time and, in the state of marriage, to lead a continent life. And, as is clear, a grave cause is always regularly present, either extrinsic or at least intrinsic. Moreover, the theologians reported in the preceding response, n. 126, universally affirm that it is lawful for a wife both to render and to ask, because, as they say, when a woman renders or asks, she gives work to a lawful thing, nor ought she herself to be deprived of her own right because of the malice of the man. L. l. c.

130. Does a wife sin by giving internal consent to pleasure, when she can permit the conjugal act to an onanist husband?

Resp. Negatively, provided she does not give assent to the sin of the man. The reason is that, since she by no means sins by permitting an act of this kind, neither does she sin by admitting the pleasure arising from it, although she foreknows that the man will not complete the copulation; for that act is in itself honorable and lawful for the woman, and it does not stand through her that it is not completed in the due manner. G. v. 2. n. 926.

131. Does a wife sin if, after the onanist husband has withdrawn from the imperfect copulation, she excites herself to complete the act, or, already aroused, delights in the subsequent pollution?

Resp. Affirmatively; for that act is true pollution, since, when the husband has withdrawn, it is no longer referable to intercourse as the complement of marital copulation; for the husband has departed, the copulation being imperfect. L. l. 6. n. 909.; Tamburini, Expl. Decal. l. 7. c. 3. n. 19.; Struggl, de matr. n. 91.

There are more recent authors who, when the conjugal act is not completed because the man withdraws himself, permit the woman afterward to complete it by semination, if she had not done so before in the very act of copulation. The reason is that an act legitimately begun can be brought to its due end. But this reason proves the contrary. For if the man did not seminate, that act of the woman can no longer be brought to the due end, and has the true notion of pollution.

132. Does a wife sin if at the very beginning of copulation, or in its continuation, she excites herself so that she may seminate, when she knows that an onanist husband will by no means complete the copulation, and delights in it?

Resp. 1. If that excitation and semination arise naturally immediately after the beginning of copulation or in the very continuation of conjugal copulation, she does not sin in any way, since indeed the woman gives work to a lawful thing by beginning copulation with her husband and continuing it.

If semination naturally follows because nature has been excited, this is not then illicit of itself; and therefore even in the semination itself the woman gives work to a lawful thing, since that whole act is of itself orderable and referable to the perfecting of conjugal intercourse and to generation. But if that act remains without its natural and necessary complement, this is not from the fault of the wife, but exclusively of the husband, who in that case ought to consummate the copulation, and although he could do so, himself does not will it. Hence it does not seem that the woman is bound by a positive effort to impede semination, and, when it has followed naturally, not to delight in it; for this would render marriage very burdensome to her and make her subject to many anxieties, since she would be in perpetual and very grave danger of sinning.

2. The difficulty seems greater if the woman would not be naturally excited, but, lest she be deprived of that pleasure which it would be most hard for her constantly to lack, she of herself by effort would excite herself all the way to semination. Nevertheless, not even in this case does the woman seem to sin gravely, since she gives work to a thing which of itself is not illicit and contrary to generation, and she has a most grave reason for doing this, if, because of a great inclination toward that thing, she would have to be deprived of that pleasure, which would make marriage burdensome for her. The whole turpitude in that matter is from without, from the malice of the husband not completing the thing, as we have already observed in the first point.

133. Note. What was said in the preceding questions about the wife having an onanist husband, who withdraws himself after copulation has begun and pours out semen, seems likewise to be said about the wife having a husband who, immediately before copulation, in order to impede generation, pollutes himself alone, and then immediately has copulation. This can be more easily admitted under this aspect, namely that notwithstanding the preceding pollution, he can still pour forth semen in that copulation which he undertakes, since almost immediately semen is reproduced in the testicles, or some part of the semen remains. For experience establishes that men can pollute themselves once, and again, and a third time successively, with a very brief interval of time interposed. Longet, loc. cit. p. 125.

134. Can a woman who has procured sterility in herself by medicated potions or by another way afterward continue in asking and rendering the debt?

Resp. If she has become merely sterile, although she sinned gravely by deliberately causing this, because by deliberate work semen is impeded from its natural end of generation, which is against nature, nevertheless she can still both render and ask the debt, like all other naturally sterile women, because that act is of the same nature whether sterility has proceeded from nature itself or from art. But if she has been rendered impotent, it seems evident that she cannot do anything except exercise only those imperfect acts which in the case of impotence are permitted to spouses. The reason is that perfect copulation on the part of the man, when this is physiologically impossible on the part of the woman, is essentially against generation, and has the true nature of pollution, whose malice is in the vain effusion of semen from the nature of the act itself.

If this were lawful because the act by its nature is not against generation, it would certainly be lawful also for a man, when he performs copulation, to use a preservative so that the semen may not pass beyond the vagina and penetrate the uterus, in order to impede generation; it would be lawful for the woman to use an astringent substance, lest sperm pass from the vagina to the uterus. For whether generation is impeded in this or that way, in a transitory or permanent manner, is it not always to impede generation positively? is not that act always from its own nature against generation?

Nevertheless there are modern authors who affirm this, because, with marriage now standing, spouses have a right to that act. But this would truly have to be proved, since that act is against generation and has the true nature of pollution on the part of the man. But, they insist, that act is not pollution, because the malice of pollution is in complete pleasure sought outside copulation. But the intrinsic malice of the act of pollution can in no way be taken from pleasure, since pleasure is not intrinsically evil of itself, but from the intrinsic end of that act, which is generation, and to which it is opposed; whence the act is against nature.

The same is the question, as is clear, if not the woman but the man, after a validly contracted marriage, becomes impotent: whether he can have copulation with his wife. Here also there are two opinions.

Laymann affirms, L. 5. tr. 10. part. 4. cap. 11. n. 3., saying: "If after a contracted marriage someone has become a eunuch, he is not prohibited from exercising imperfect copulation with the emission of semen that is not true, as Toletus teaches, lib. 7. cap. 16. num. 4., Sanchez, lib. 7. disp. 102. n. 7. Because although such persons cannot contract marriage, nevertheless, once it is contracted, to use it is lawful for them, insofar as this can be done." But this is the practical difficulty: whether it is lawful for them to use it insofar as this can be done. Certainly it is lawful for them to use it if the act remains incomplete on the part of the man and the woman, because nothing is done against generation; but not when the act is now positively opposed to generation and consequently pollution is had on the part of the woman. If such an act of a man whose two testicles have been perfectly amputated after the validly entered marriage is lawful, then it must be said that it is not an act against nature, or against generation. And if it is not against the good of offspring, why could such a man not then, after the death of his wife, contract another valid marriage?

Sanchez, however, l. c. n. 6. 7., reports two opinions. The first denies. For "it seems then that copulation is not lawful, because the woman emits true semen, and this is frustrated of its due end of generation, with male semen lacking." The second, to which the same Sanchez adheres, affirms, "because that man uses his own right, applying himself to the conjugal act which marriage permits." But the whole question precisely concerns this right: whether it is present, since also in this other case that whole act is positively against generation, and on the part of the woman that act assumes the nature of pollution.

It is urged by modern doctors that in a woman there is not pollution, but only complete venereal delectation. But if this doctrine is admitted, it is certainly not apparent how there can be grave sin in a married woman from that complete delectation. For simple venereal delectation is not gravely illicit for spouses. And as the modern doctors themselves say, and rightly, from the common doctrine: "grave sin in spouses is only that which is voluntary pollution, whether solitary, or the crime of onanism and sodomy.... All other actions in themselves, or considered in their nature, are lawful for spouses, and become sins if they are exercised for pleasure alone, or with foreseen danger of pollution, without a just cause." Besides, they add: "incomplete venereal delectation does not differ in species from complete." And their reason is that "the circumstance of pollution does not change the species of the sin." And consequently they deduce: "if women accuse themselves either of venereal delectation or of immodest touches, they are not to be interrogated further as to whether they have been polluted." But consequently it is also deduced that in a married woman there is never grave sin in a venereal matter, the thing considered in itself, or according to its nature, in relation to a woman joined in marriage. But this conclusion does not seem to cohere with the repeated responses of the Sacred Penitentiary. Cf. following numbers 135. 136. 153.

135. Can it be counseled, or at least permitted without grave sin, to spouses who are found in an ordinary and natural state, but who by mutual consent are determined to receive no children from marriage, to begin and break off copulation, and this in order to avoid the most grave sin of onanism?

Resp. The proposed question can be considered in two ways, speculatively and practically. The speculative question has already been treated generally at n. 28. 3. But if the question is made practically, the answer is simply: negatively. For if those spouses are in an ordinary and normal state, and therefore are still in youthful age and of warmer nature, morally speaking it cannot happen that pollution does not always, or at least ordinarily, follow. Cf. l. c. Hence St. Alphonsus, l. 6. n. 918., says, "Sanchez with Veracruz wisely observes that this, namely begun copulation, restraining semination, is ordinarily mortal, because ordinarily there is present danger from such withdrawal of pouring forth semen, unless the spouses have experienced the contrary." And the same holy doctor, ibid. n. 941., says, "the danger of incontinence, as Coninck well observes, will scarcely not be present if a spouse dwells in the same bed and the other asks the debt." Nor does it truly avail to object, as some oppose, that this copulation from its intrinsic nature is not at least gravely illicit, since it is an incomplete act of itself very proximately orderable to the complete act of marital copulation. For that act, because of this same reason, is of itself a grave, indeed a most grave, cause of the effusion of semen, and therefore of pollution, if the copulation is broken off. Therefore that act will be lawful only when, because of peculiar subjective dispositions, that same act ceases gravely to influence pollution. Cf. here n. 28. 3. and n. 96.; Elbel, de matr. n. 429.

136. Moreover, here are added certain resolutions of grave theologians, so that each may judge the matter for himself; by these, moreover, the doctrines set forth both here and above are confirmed.

Sporer 500.: "Titia, a young wife, jovial and of warm temperament, has a husband already nearly a septuagenarian, nevertheless the father of some children from her, but now worn out by old age and altogether impotent. Yet they love each other. The loving husband, because he cannot otherwise, does the thing by touches. Titia suffers it, and thence is polluted once, twice, three times; anxious, she asks help: on the one hand she fears God and sin; on the other hand she loves her husband and suffers very sharp stimuli of the flesh. It is asked whether nothing remains, or what remedy remains. Gobat answers in these very words: I answer from what has already been said, since those touches seem to be practiced ordinarily without pollution, although this sometimes follows besides the direct intention of each; since further it appears to be done not from mere lust, but to testify and foster conjugal love, which otherwise easily grows cold in so unequal a marriage, therefore according to the opinion of Sanchez and Filliucci they do not seem to sin mortally by those touches. I confirm this by the authority of Diana, who, consulted, answered absolutely and without limitation that spouses who embrace each other as a sign of conjugal love do not sin, although it is foreseen that pollution will follow, because conjugal affection is a sufficient cause excusing such an act. Thus he himself testifies, part 6. Res. 207. in Tr. 6. Thus far Gobat."

Diana, Tr. 6. de Sacr. matr. R. 205.: "Whether, when the danger of pollution has ceased in each spouse, the husband does not sin mortally if he breaks off begun copulation before semination, lest offspring be generated, provided he does this with the wife consenting or not reasonably unwilling; provided also that the woman does not seminate, otherwise the husband ought to seminate, lest the semen of the other be poured forth in vain?

"The doctors commonly note that, when the danger of pollution has ceased in each spouse, the husband does not sin mortally if he breaks off begun copulation before semination, lest offspring be generated, provided he does this with the wife consenting or not reasonably unwilling. Indeed, if there is a just cause for impeding semination, for example, on account of poverty and a multitude of children, and nevertheless of lying together for the calming of concupiscence, all fault is absent if mutual consent accedes, provided also that the woman does not seminate; otherwise the husband also ought ordinarily to seminate, lest the semen of the other be poured forth in vain. Thus Laymann, and before him Sanchez, T. 3. l. 9. disp. 10. n. 3., asserting thus. Where there is a just cause, for example, lest semination harm health, or the spouses are poor and abound in offspring whom they cannot feed, and they have such copulation without danger of semination, by which they calm concupiscence, I find no fault. These are his words. Hence spouses who are infirm and who would begin copulation for calming concupiscence, and voluntarily by no means complete it, are not to be condemned even of venial fault, and this case can frequently occur."

And R. 207: "Someone began copulation with his wife, and afterward, because of danger of disease, with her consent withdrew himself; but from this pollution sometimes followed. I was asked whether such an act was lawful. I answered affirmatively, because it is not a sin to give work to a lawful thing and to an honorable action, although it is foreseen that pollution will follow, provided the danger of consent is absent, as it was in the case about which I was asked; because then the pollution is not willed in itself, as is supposed, nor can it be said to be willed in the cause, because I am not bound to omit that action, lest pollution follow, when a just cause stands. Therefore...."

"Is it lawful for a wife to render the debt or ask it from her husband who wishes to seminate outside the vessel after copulation has begun? The first opinion affirms..., because when the woman renders or asks, she gives her effort to a licit thing, nor should she herself be deprived of her right because of the malice of her husband. The second opinion says that the wife can neither ask nor render unless there is a grave cause which excuses her in permitting the sin of the man and in cooperating with the material element of that sin; otherwise she is bound from charity, when she can without grave inconvenience, to impede the sin of her husband. But I think a distinction must be made.

If there is question of rendering the debt, I say the wife probably can and is bound to deny the debt if she can do so without grave inconvenience, because one who will abuse the thing due to him does not have a right to vindicate the thing for himself. But it seems more probable that the wife not only can render, but is also bound. The reason is that when the fault stands on the part of the person asking, since that person has a right to copulation, the other cannot without injustice deny the debt if she cannot turn him away from such fault by admonishing him; and then it is clear that the one rendering does not even materially cooperate with the semination outside the vessel, but only with the copulation begun, which per se is altogether licit for both. But if there is question of asking the debt, I say that the wife cannot ask unless there is a just and grave cause. For then she is truly bound from charity to impede the sin of her husband. But she will have a just cause of asking if she herself were in danger of incontinence, or if otherwise she would have to be deprived of her right of asking more than once or twice, with a perpetual scruple whether then to contain herself would be a grave inconvenience to her, or not." L. 947. Cf. book 2, n. 53, par. Si vero; Sacred Penitentiary, November 16, 1816; February 1, 1823; June 8, 1842; E.M. "The sin of a married man with his own wife is not according to undue matter, but according to other circumstances, which do not constitute the species of the moral act." St. Thomas, II-II, q. 154, a. 1, ad 4. Therefore besides mutual scandal there remains the species of sin against nature, in whatever way after perfect copulation generation is impeded. Ferreres, 922, IV. This practice as regards the health of spouses is also fertile in very many grave evils. Antonelli, vol. 2, p. 351, n. 587.

To nn. 1066, 1067.

"It is asked of the Apostolic See with what theological note the following three propositions are worthy, namely:

1. For honest reasons spouses may use marriage in the way in which Onan used it.

2. It is probable that this use of marriage is not prohibited by natural law.

3. It is never expedient to question spouses of either sex about this matter, even if it is prudently feared that the spouses, whether the husband or the wife, abuse marriage.

Response to the first: that the proposition is scandalous, erroneous, and contrary to the natural law of marriage. To the second: that the proposition is scandalous, erroneous, and otherwise implicitly condemned by Innocent XI in proposition 49. To the third: that the proposition, as it stands, is false, too lax, and dangerous in practice." Holy Office, May 21, 1851.

It is asked: "1. Whether spouses who use marriage in such a way as to prevent conception perform an act morally evil in itself?

2. If the act is to be held as morally evil, whether spouses who do not accuse themselves of it can be considered as constituted in that good faith which excuses them from grave fault?

3. Whether the manner of acting of confessors is to be approved who, lest they offend married persons, do not question them concerning the manner in which they use the rights of marriage?

Response to the first: Since the whole disorder of the act proceeds from the malice of the man, who, instead of consummating, withdraws himself and pours out outside the vessel, therefore if the woman, after due admonitions, makes no progress, while the man insists by threatening blows or death, she herself, as approved theologians teach, will be able without sin simply to permit it, and this from a grave cause which excuses her; since charity, by which she is bound to impede it, does not oblige with so great an inconvenience."

But to the second and third it is responded: "That the aforesaid confessor recall to mind that saying: holy things are to be treated holily; and also that he weigh the words of St. Alphonsus de Liguori, a learned man and most experienced in these matters, who in the Praxis Confessariorum, § 4, n. 41, says: But concerning the sins of spouses with respect to the conjugal debt, ordinarily speaking, the confessor is not bound, nor is it becoming, to question, except wives, whether they have rendered it, in the most modest way he can... Let him be silent about the rest, unless he is asked. Nor let him omit consulting other approved authors." Sacred Penitentiary, June 8, 1842.

"Bertha has a husband whom by constant experience she knows to be an onanist. In vain she has tried all means to draw him back from so wicked a crime. Indeed very grave or at least grave evils now probably threaten her, so that she must either incur these evils, or flee from the house of her husband, unless she permits, at least sometimes, the abuse of marriage, etc.

Response: Since in the proposed case the woman on her part does nothing against nature, and gives herself to a lawful thing, while the whole disorder of the act proceeds from the malice of the man, who, instead of consummating, withdraws himself and pours out outside the vessel; and therefore, if the woman after due admonitions makes no progress, while the man insists, threatening blows or death or other most grave evils, she herself will be able (as approved theologians teach) to behave permissively without sin; since in these circumstances she simply permits the sin of her husband, and this from a grave cause which excuses her; because charity, by which she is bound to impede it, does not oblige with so great an inconvenience." Sacred Penitentiary, February 1, 1823.

By another Decision of November 13, 1901, the same Sacred Penitentiary declared that pure and simple onanism is still had, although the husband, in the act of interrupting intercourse and emitting seed outside the vessel, intends the quieting of concupiscence and not pollution; and that consequently he cannot be absolved if he wishes to persevere in that act.

921. • Onanism consists in this: that a man, after intercourse has begun, withdraws himself before seminal emission and sheds the semen outside, in order to impede generation. Everyone sees of himself that this is to indulge lust and at the same time to be unwilling to assume the burdens of matrimony.

It takes its name from Onan, the second son of the patriarch Judah, who, after the death of his brother Her, was compelled according to custom to marry his widow Tamar, that he might raise up seed for his brother; but going in to his brother's wife, he spilled his seed upon the ground, lest children should be born in his brother's name. And therefore the Lord struck him, because he did a detestable thing. Genesis 38:9, 10.

922. Statements. - I say I. Voluntary onanism is always a mortal sin, as being against nature, and therefore it can never be licit for spouses. The reason is: 1. because it plainly fights against the primary end of matrimony, and of itself tends toward the extinction of society, and therefore overturns the natural order; 2. because it was strictly prohibited by the Supreme Legislator and Author of nature, as is gathered from the text of Genesis just related; 3. it is moreover established from proposition 49 condemned by Innocent XI, which reads thus: Mollities is not prohibited by natural law.... Hence thus: Onanism is true and properly so-called mollities, or pollution outside the licit use of matrimony; therefore, etc. This is confirmed by several Decisions of the Sacred Penitentiary and the Holy Office, to be reported below under nos. 927, 928, and 929.

I say II. An onanistic husband can never be excused from grave sin, and therefore is never to be absolved unless he sincerely grieves for his sin and proposes to avoid it in the future. The reason is apparent from what has been said.

I say III. A wife can be excused from sin if, for a grave cause, she renders the debt to an onanistic husband, provided that she does not inwardly assent to his sin and outwardly shows her repugnance by serious admonitions or other signs of displeasure. The reason is: 1. because she attends to a licit thing and uses her right, of which she cannot be deprived on account of the malice of the husband; nor does she properly cooperate in the sin of another, since she conducts herself only passively, and the intrinsically evil action consists only in the act of the husband then withdrawing against the order of nature; 2. because she is not bound by charity to impede the sin of her husband with grave inconvenience to herself; 3. because it is apparent from the responses by which the Sacred Penitentiary declared that a woman of this kind is not to be disturbed. - See the decisions to be reported below under no. 931.

923. Resolutions. - 1. A woman sins gravely who induces a man to abuse matrimony even indirectly or tacitly, for example, by complaining about the number of children, the labors of childbirth, or the education of the children, or by repeatedly saying that she will die in the next childbirth, etc. A fortiori, she sins gravely if, against the will of her husband, she withdraws herself from intercourse begun before seminal emission.

2. Likewise, a woman sins gravely by inwardly consenting to the detestable action of her husband ¹, even if outwardly she shows repugnance. For sin must always be held in hatred.

¹ Understand this if she approves the evil work itself and rejoices in it as such in itself. For an inefficacious complacency not concerning the evil work in itself, but only concerning an effect which follows from it, does not of itself contain guilt, as all the Doctors establish in the Treatise On Sins. See vol. 1, no. 173, resolution 4. And this must be carefully observed, lest a wife be vexed without cause who, while she efficaciously detests the crime of her husband (and the efficacy of this detestation is proved from the fact that, if the option were given her, she would never will this abuse), could otherwise rejoice in immunity from the inconveniences and dangers which accompany gestation, childbirth, etc.

3. A wife is bound, at least ordinarily, to admonish an onanistic husband concerning the obligation of acting rightly, and, insofar as lies in her, to turn him away from a perverse manner of acting. Nor is it sufficient that she has admonished him once, but she ought sometimes to repeat the admonitions, unless she is certain that a new admonition will profit nothing. Nevertheless, even then she ought in some manner to manifest her repugnance, lest she appear willingly to consent to the sin of her husband. - Thus commonly, and the Sacred Penitentiary, when consulted, replied in this manner.

4. It will also be the duty of the wife to move her husband by caresses, various signs of love, entreaties, and exhortations either to complete the act rightly or to abstain from it altogether ². Experience establishes that very many onanistic husbands, thus drawn by their wives, have returned to better conduct.

² ** This abstinence will be all the less grave and troublesome to the husband, and therefore the wife will be able to obtain it from her husband all the more easily, when the spouses know that it is not necessary that abstinence of this kind be perpetual, and when, on the contrary, they have ascertained that not even prolonged abstinence is finally demanded of them. And certainly it is usually almost this cause which impels to this unspeakable abuse: that parents bear it ill if they must be burdened with more numerous offspring. But after more accurate studies of physiology, it is now established that there are fixed times in which the effect of generation can or cannot be hoped for from conjugal intercourse; and it is now held as ascertained that this effect cannot be hoped for from the fourteenth day after menstruation has begun until the end of the following period, that is, until the next recurrence of menstruation. Therefore, since it is clear that, in comparison with the most grave evil which is evident in continual abuse of matrimony against nature, and therefore in that perpetual state of sin in which the husband lies immersed, the inconvenience of that moderate abstinence which suffices for averting so great an evil and at the same time provides both for the infirmity of the flesh and for a just fear of more numerous offspring can and ought to appear lighter even to the husband himself, one certainly must not despair or doubt that the solicitous care of a pious wife will lead her husband to sounder counsels. Moreover, if it is licit for spouses by the common consent of both to observe perpetual continence; if it is licit for spouses to observe continence and defer the consummation of matrimony for twenty or thirty years, or even until that age at which no hope of offspring now remains; and again, if for another legitimate end of matrimony, although every hope of offspring is absent, it is nevertheless licit for a just cause and with the order of nature preserved to use conjugal rights, both when the wife labors under certain sterility and when on account of advanced age she has become altogether incapable of conceiving; what, finally, prevents spouses from observing continence for the end stated above according to the aforesaid norm and limits? Or by what law, finally, shall we say that they are bound to have intercourse at another time?

924. Questions. - QUESTION 1. How ought the Confessor to conduct himself with spouses who are entirely silent concerning the use of matrimony?

Reply. This difficulty of daily practice is not so easily resolved, especially in our times, in which the plague of onanism rages everywhere. Hence the manner of acting among Confessors varies. Some judge that spouses ought generally to be questioned concerning the use of matrimony, because the abuse of matrimony is most common, nor in a matter so opposed to the law of nature can good faith ordinarily be presumed. Others, on the contrary, think that all questions are entirely to be omitted, because spouses, although in reality guilty of onanism, are perhaps in good faith, and when this has been expelled they will nevertheless continue in the depraved habit of sinning; and therefore they will no longer be capable of absolution and will be excluded from receiving the Sacraments. We judge that one must recede from both these extremes and follow a middle way. For, on the one hand, in a matter so difficult and dangerous it is by no means fitting that the Confessor propose numerous and minute questions to married persons. Indeed, unless there is grave probability that the penitent is stained by a sin of this kind, he ought to preserve profound silence. On the other hand, the Confessor cannot always abstain from every question, since by reason of his office as judge he ought of himself to procure the integrity of the confession whenever he gravely suspects that the penitent is not satisfying his obligation ³. Nor should you say that the Confessor is excused from the obligation of questioning by reason of the most grave inconvenience which occurs in the present case; for penitents can generally be questioned without so great an inconvenience if he proceeds cautiously and prudently, for example, by inquiring in a general manner whether anything stings the conscience concerning the sanctity of matrimony. But if they deny it, generally they are not to be pressed by further questioning. This doctrine is confirmed by a recent Decision of the Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition on May 21, 1851. For it had been asked what theological note the following proposition merited: It is never expedient to question spouses of either sex concerning this matter (onanism), even if it is prudently feared that the spouses, whether the husband or the wife, abuse matrimony. The reply was: The proposition, as it stands, is false, too lax, and dangerous in practice. - See below, no. 930.

³ This reason is of little efficacy in this place. For either the Confessor supposes that the penitent is in good faith, and according to the things premised by the Author himself the reason of procuring the integrity of Confession does not require that the penitent be disturbed from good faith; or he doubts the good faith of the penitent, and then, since the question does not concern sins whose omission can be attributed to forgetfulness, the questioning will easily turn out either harmful, if the penitent was in good faith, or useless, if in bad faith the penitent preserves silence concerning that matter. On this argument see Frassinetti in Dissertation X, cited elsewhere, Dell'integrita della Confessione.

925. • QUESTION 2. Can a wife seek the debt from an onanistic husband?

Reply. More probably, affirmatively, for a grave cause, for example, if she herself is exposed to danger of incontinence; because she has a right to intercourse and is excused from the sin of cooperation. Thus St. Ligorius, no. 947 ⁴. The Major Penitentiary, Cardinal de Gregorio, likewise declared this in an admonition concerning the aforesaid responses of the Sacred Penitentiary, although he adds that the Sacred Penitentiary refused to give a decision concerning this matter.

⁴ Behold the opinion of St. Alphonsus: The wife will have a just cause for seeking if she herself were in danger of incontinence, or if she would otherwise have to be deprived of her right of seeking more than once or twice, with a perpetual scruple whether it is a sufficiently grave inconvenience for her to contain herself then or not. See the things said in a similar case, book 2, no. 53, at "But if." This other passage of St. Alphonsus explains his mind even more clearly. And the Confessor ought to observe these things well, so that he may know when there is occasion for declaring the obligation and when occasion is given him only for employing counsels and exhortations.

926. • QUESTION 3. Does a wife sin by furnishing internal consent to the pleasure when she can permit the conjugal act to an onanistic husband?

Reply. Negatively, provided that she does not furnish assent to the sin of her husband. The reason is that, since she does not sin at all by permitting an act of this kind, neither does she sin by admitting the pleasure arising from it, although she foreknows that the husband will not complete intercourse; for that act is honorable and licit in itself for the woman, and it is not owing to her that it is not completed in the due manner. - See Cases, no. 1104.

927. FIRST CONSULTATION. - The Bishop of N. most humbly petitions for the solution of this doubt:

1. Can a woman be absolved who indeed would suffer her husband if he acted rightly in conjugal intercourse, but vehemently desires that the husband withdraw himself because that woman fears having offspring?

2. Can a woman be absolved who, in conjugal intercourse, could by her caresses obtain from her husband that he not withdraw himself, and does not do so because that intercourse displeases her?

RESPONSE. - The Sacred Penitentiary, having weighed the doubts proposed by the Venerable Father in Christ, the Bishop of N., replied: Negatively. Given at Rome in the Sacred Penitentiary on May 27, 1847.

928. SECOND CONSULTATION. - It is asked of the Apostolic See what theological note the following three propositions merit, namely: 1. For honorable reasons it is licit for spouses to use matrimony in the manner in which Onan used it. 2. It is probable that this use of matrimony is not prohibited by natural law. 3. It is never expedient to question spouses of either sex concerning this matter, even if it is prudently feared that the spouses, whether the husband or the wife, abuse matrimony.

RESPONSE. - The Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition, May 21, 1851. To the first: The proposition is scandalous, erroneous, and contrary to the natural law of matrimony. To the second: The proposition is scandalous, erroneous, and otherwise implicitly condemned by Innocent XI in proposition 49 (see this proposition above, no. 922). To the third: The proposition, as it stands, is false, too lax, and dangerous in practice.

929. THIRD CONSULTATION. - The petition of the Most Illustrious Lord Bouvier, Bishop of Le Mans, concerning the manner of acting of Confessors with spouses in relation to onanism.

Most Blessed Father, the Bishop of Le Mans in France, prostrate at the feet of Your Holiness with the greatest reverence, humbly represents the things which follow.

Almost all younger married couples do not wish to have more numerous offspring, and nevertheless are morally unable to abstain from the conjugal act.

When questioned by the Confessor concerning the manner in which they use the rights of matrimony, they commonly tend to be gravely offended; and when admonished, they neither abstain from the conjugal act nor can they be determined to an excessive multiplication of offspring.

Then, murmuring against the Confessors, they abandon the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist, give bad example to their children, servants, and other faithful of Christ; hence a lamentable detriment to Religion arises.

The number of those who approach the sacred Tribunal of Penance in many places decreases from year to year, especially on account of this cause, as most parish priests more conspicuous for piety, learning, and experience acknowledge.

Therefore, many say: How, then, did Confessors act formerly? No more children than today were commonly born from individual marriages, spouses were not more chaste, and nevertheless they did not fail in the precepts of annual Confession and Paschal Communion.

All freely admit that infidelity toward the other spouse and an attempt at abortion are a very great sin. But they can scarcely, indeed scarcely at all, be persuaded that they are bound under mortal sin either to observe perfect chastity in matrimony ⁵ or to incur the danger of generating innumerable offspring.

⁵ This is not to be understood as though there were not many things which certainly are not licit for those who are bound to observe perfect chastity and yet are licit for spouses, even if for some cause they abstain from perfect intercourse, as is apparent from the things said above (see article III, On the Sins of Spouses). Compare also St. Alphonsus (book 6, no. 933).

The aforesaid Bishop of Le Mans, foreseeing that enormous evils will arise from this and disturbed by anxiety, solicitously asks of Your Blessedness:

1. Do spouses who so use matrimony as to prevent conception exercise an act morally evil of itself?

2. If the act is to be held as morally evil, can spouses who do not accuse themselves of it be considered as constituted in that good faith which excuses them from grave fault?

3. Is the manner of acting of Confessors to be approved who, lest they offend married persons, do not question them concerning the manner in which they use the rights of matrimony?

930. RESPONSE. - The Sacred Penitentiary, having maturely weighed the proposed questions, replies to the first: Since the whole inordination of the act proceeds from the malice of the husband, who, instead of consummating, withdraws himself and sheds outside the vessel, therefore, if the woman after due admonitions accomplishes nothing, while the husband insists by threatening blows or death, she will be able, as approved Theologians teach, simply to permit it without sin, and this for a grave cause which excuses her; because charity, by which she is bound to impede it, does not oblige with so great an inconvenience.

But to the second and third it replies: Let the aforesaid Confessor recall to mind that adage, holy things are to be treated holily; and let him also weigh the words of St. Alphonsus de Liguori, a man learned and most skilled in these matters, who in The Practice of Confessors, section 4, no. 41, says: But concerning the sins of spouses with respect to the conjugal debt, ordinarily speaking, the Confessor is not bound, nor is it fitting, to question anyone except wives, whether they have rendered it, in the most modest manner possible.... Concerning other matters let him be silent unless he has been questioned. Nor should he omit to consult other approved authors. Given at Rome by the Sacred Penitentiary on June 8, 1842.

931. FOURTH CONSULTATION. - Question. Bertha has a husband whom she knows by constant experience to be an onanist. In vain has she tried every means to withdraw him from so unspeakable a crime. Indeed, most grave or at least grave evils now probably threaten her, so that she must either incur these evils or flee from her husband's house unless she permits the abuse of matrimony at least sometimes, etc.

RESPONSE. - Since in the proposed case the woman indeed does nothing against nature on her own part and attends to a licit thing, while the whole inordination of the act proceeds from the malice of the husband, who, instead of consummating, withdraws himself and sheds outside the vessel; therefore, if the woman after due admonitions accomplishes nothing, while the husband insists, threatening blows or death or other most grave evils, she will be able (as approved Theologians teach) to conduct herself permissively without sin; since in these circumstances she simply permits the sin of her husband, and this for a grave cause which excuses her, because charity, by which she is bound to impede it, does not oblige with so great an inconvenience. Given at Rome in the Sacred Penitentiary on February 1, 1823.

There also exist other responses of the Sacred Penitentiary which are entirely consonant with the preceding; Gousset reports them in the work Justification de Saint Liguori, page 272.

End of the Treatise on Matrimony.

39. 1° Notion of onanism. Onanism properly so called, or conjugal onanism, is copula so performed that, although the effusion of human seed is present, the conception of offspring is rendered impossible. This is effected in various modes: (a) on the part of the man, if, copula having begun in the due vessel, he withdraws before emission and pours forth seed outside the vessel²; or covers the virile member with some thin covering (in French capotte anglaise, in English French coat, commonly condom) within which the emitted seed is retained; (b) on the part of the woman, when she uses a sponge, or an occlusive covering, by which the entrance of virile seed into the uterus is blocked; or an irrigator, by which seed received in the vagina is washed out; or chemical substances by which the seed is killed.

¹ Besides the authors already cited, cf. Nardi, De Onanismo, apud Appendices to Billuart, p. 549 sq.; Ami du Clerge, XX, 1898, p. 1073 sq., 1105 sq.; XXI, 1899, p. 328-331; Surbled, op. cit., I, p. 181-204.

² This was the crime of Onan (hence the word onanism), who, "going in to the wife of his brother, poured forth seed upon the ground, lest children should be born in the name of his brother" (Gen., XXXVIII, 9). Yet it must be noted that there Onan is especially reprehended because, against the law, he was unwilling to raise up children for his deceased brother. - Onanism is also called Malthusianism from Malthus, who in the work Essay on the Principles of Population, 1878, proposed means of impeding the excessive multiplication of men; yet he himself does not advocate illicit means, but rather voluntary continence as soon as a sufficient number of children has been procreated. - In the broad sense, among physicians, onanism also designates solitary pollution committed.

40. 2° The malice and depraved consequences of onanism. (A) Onanism voluntarily committed is a grave sin against nature. For copula of itself is ordered so that the human species can be propagated, and therefore spouses, while they legitimately occupy themselves with the matrimonial work, are helpers of God and cooperators in the procreation of a most noble creature, which is destined for divine adoption; but onanists, by using illegitimate means for preventing conception, frustrate nature; they abuse the organs given to them against the order intended by God; they become guilty of a certain sacrilege, while they change a most noble thing into a most base act of ignominy of passion, and convert the immaculate marriage bed into a brothel; moreover they show themselves cruel while, for the sake of a most shameful pleasure, they positively refuse to concur with God in procreating infants¹, who could have been citizens of the heavenly fatherland. - Therefore deservedly the Holy Office, May 21, 1851, condemned the following proposition²: "It is probable that that use of marriage (onanism) is not prohibited by natural law."

¹ This also the Pagans recognized; hence Martial the poet said concerning pollution (Epigram., book IX, 42): "Believe that nature herself says of things: That which you lose with your fingers, Ponticus, is a man!"

² Apud Ami du Clerge, XX, p. 1077; there you will find other responses of the Holy See on this matter.

41. (B) Ruinous consequences follow from onanism. (a) The spouses themselves often suffer many evils from it; for just as children are the common good and common bond by which spouses are joined more firmly and closely, so on the other hand those who lack offspring much more easily disagree and separate from one another. - Nor should it be said that one or another child suffices for attaining this end; for the more numerous the offspring, the firmer the union of the spouses; moreover not rarely are onanists punished by the premature death of one or another child whom they had begotten; hence often parents of an only child are pressed by anxieties and fears, lest perhaps this child be taken from the living and the name of the family be blotted out. - Besides, marital copula which, legitimately performed, is a remedy for concupiscence, does not quiet it but inflames it when it is performed onanistically; especially the woman is not completely delighted, nor does she rest unless the uterus is irrigated by virile seed tempering its heat. - Hence also physicians cry out with one voice that onanists are liable to many diseases³, which arise especially from excitation of the nerves; for the disturbance which intercourse causes is not quieted except by the natural effusion and reception of virile sperm.

³ Apud Eschbach, p. 573-574; cf. Surbled, op. cit., vol. I, book II, ch. 11-12.

42. (b) Offspring also not rarely suffers some detriment from the onanism of the parents, which the Council of Puy⁴ describes thus, 1868: "Very often it happens that that son, brought up too indulgently, either by God's command shortly ends his life, or, having become worse with age, deprived of the sweet love and protection of brothers and sisters, loving himself, not obeying his parents, proud, ungrateful, without affection, afflicts his family with disgrace and grief."

⁴ Chap. VI, n. 8, apud Collect. Lacens., vol. IV, p. 830.

43. (c) Nor does onanism harm society less. Indeed, the principal strength and protection of society is placed in the number and virile education of citizens; but onanism, by impeding generation, lessens the number of citizens, so that nations once flourishing gradually decline; it likewise stands in the way of the virile education of boys: for where there is an only son, he is generally brought up more indulgently, is devoted to pleasure rather than to duty, and often becomes wholly useless to the fatherland. - Nor must it be feared that men will multiply beyond measure; for today there are many regions still uncultivated, and new means are discovered by which fields already cultivated can bring forth more abundant fruits; hence trust is to be placed in Him who said: "Increase and multiply, and fill the earth"¹; for He Himself will provide.

¹ Gen., I, 28.

44. 3° On the cooperation of the wife with onanistic copula. (A) If the cooperation is formal, so that the wife truly consents to it or rejoices in it, or a fortiori herself uses means for preventing conception, she certainly sins gravely. The same must be said if morally and efficaciously she cooperates with this crime, by complaining about numerous offspring, about the pains of childbirth, and at the same time foreseeing that by these complaints the man is induced to onanistic congress.

If the wife rejoices not in the sin itself, but in the pleasure which is experienced in copula of this sort before the man withdraws himself, or in the effects of this sin, e.g., in preservation from the troubles and labors of pregnancy or childbirth, by that very fact she is not guilty of mortal fault; for, strictly speaking, she can rejoice concerning these, provided she detests that sin and seriously tries to impede it. Nevertheless, since it is greatly to be feared lest complacency concerning the effects pass into complacency concerning the sin itself, it is to be advised to her that she quickly turn her mind away from that joy, and before God protest that she does not approve such abuse.

45. (B) If the cooperation is material, i.e., if the wife suffers or permits onanistic copula, without approving it in any way, a distinction must be made: (a) when onanism is performed by the withdrawal of the man alone, the cooperation of the woman is permitted from a grave cause, e.g., for avoiding quarrels, or the adultery of the husband, or her own incontinence; indeed the wife can ask the debt from an onanistic man, because of a grave reason, e.g., because it is grave for her to abstain so long from the use of marriage. For there is question of an act which in itself is licit, and which the man can furnish in a licit mode, if he wishes; and, even if it is foreseen that he will sin from his own malice, this can be permitted, provided there is sufficient reason. Hence in this case the wife can consent to the pleasure arising from this copula, since she herself completes the conjugal act in a legitimate mode.

Nevertheless by prayers, blandishments, admonitions, signs of displeasure, or other means she ought to induce the man to have copula in a legitimate mode; to this she is held, not indeed on each single occasion, but at an opportune time, both by the obligation of fraternal correction, and lest otherwise she seem to consent¹.

¹ "Nevertheless let the petitioner admonish a wife of this sort, that she not cease prudently to warn her husband that he desist from this turpitude." (Sacred Penitentiary, Nov. 5, 1816).

46. (b) But when onanism is performed condomistically, i.e., with the instrument commonly called a condom, within which the virile seed is retained, regularly not even the material cooperation of the wife is licit; for such congress is intrinsically evil already from the beginning, since it renders conception impossible: and to cooperate with it is a grave sin. Therefore the wife ought positively to resist with all her strength. For the man in this case is deservedly equated with an oppressor, and therefore the woman ought to oppose that resistance which a virgin opposes to an invader, as the Sacred Penitentiary declared, June 3, 1916². Nevertheless, just as a woman oppressed by a man is not bound to resist him even to death: then she does not permit, but only suffers the abuse of marriage, every affection toward evil delight having been excluded.

² Apud Marc, n. 2117.

This doctrine is confirmed by the response of the Holy Office, April 6, 1853: "1° Whether the imperfect use of marriage, whether it be done onanistically or condomistically, according as in the case, is licit? - Negatively; for it is intrinsically evil. 2° Whether a wife, knowing, in condomistic congress can passively offer herself? - Negatively; for she would give assistance to a thing intrinsically illicit."¹

¹ Apud Ami du Clerge, loc. cit., p. 1077.

47. 4° On certain acts approaching onanism. (A) If marital copula is interrupted because of some necessity, e.g., to avoid scandal which would be suffered by a person fortuitously arriving, there is no sin, even if seed is poured forth outside the vagina; for this is done besides intention, to avoid a greater moral evil, and therefore is no more culpable than involuntary pollution.

48. (B) If two spouses, exercising the conjugal act, by mutual consent break off copula before emission, without there being danger of pouring forth seed outside the vessel, strictly speaking they probably do not sin gravely, especially if there is a grave reason for acting thus, e.g., to avoid very dangerous childbirth, or lest offspring be excessively multiplied; for copula in this case is only an immodest touch which, between spouses, danger of pollution being excluded, is not gravely illicit. Nevertheless ordinarily spouses are to be kept from such a manner of acting; for often there is present danger of pouring forth seed outside the vessel; and moreover those who act in this way are commonly led by pleasure alone, and easily fall into onanism².

² You will find this question set forth more fully apud N. Rev. Theol., XXXII, 1900, p. 579-635; Collat. Brug., VI, 1901, p. 466-478.

Hence if the man began copula with the intention of emitting seed within the vessel, but, because of weariness or weakness or spasm or another reason of this sort, foresees that effusion of seed very probably will not follow even if copula is prolonged further, he can cease from copula, even if the wife has already emitted seed; for no one is held to the impossible.

49. (C) The practice of having copula only at those times at which conception rarely occurs differs altogether from onanism. Namely, according to the laws of physiology, generation of offspring happens much more easily three or four days before and fourteen days after the beginning of menstruation; while it occurs only rarely from the fifteenth day to the few days which precede the recurrence of the menses; therefore if copula is had only at this time, which is called the time of agenesis, conception is indeed possible, but not very probable. Moreover, such a manner of acting is not sinful, since spouses can contain themselves as long as they wish, and moreover they do nothing against the end of marriage at the time when they come together. Deservedly therefore the Sacred Penitentiary, June 16, 1889, responded¹: "Spouses using marriage in the aforesaid mode are not to be disturbed, and the confessor can insinuate the opinion concerning which there is question, cautiously nevertheless, to those spouses whom he has tried in vain to lead away in another way from the detestable crime of onanism."

¹ Apud Bucceroni, Enchirid., n. 913.

50. (D) Wives who, while they exercise the conjugal act, try to avoid emission, and because of this turn the mind to other things or procure sensible pain for themselves, objectively do not sin, because feminine distillation is not necessary for generation; but sometimes they sin subjectively, because they do it for the end of impeding conception; hence they are to be admonished that all efforts of this sort are altogether useless. - The same must be said of those who, immediately after copula, rise or urinate; for thus conception is not impeded, because the uterus soon draws the seed and, once it has been received, is immediately closed; but the very intention of expelling seed is a mortal sin.

51. (E) If, because of an organic defect, the wife cannot retain virile seed, nevertheless she licitly exercises copula, because she does nothing against the order of nature, and if the seed is cast out, this cannot be imputed to her. But every act by which the received seed is voluntarily expelled or killed is a grave sin. Hence women ought not to irrigate the vagina immediately, but only several hours after copula (according to certain experts of the medical art, ten or twelve)².

² Surbled, op. cit., vol. I, p. 202.

52. 5° On the manner of acting of confessors as regards onanists. (A) According to the Sacred Penitentiary, March 10, 1886³, since this unspeakable vice is widely prevalent, confessors ought to try to uproot it; for accomplishing this: (a) when there is founded suspicion that penitents who are wholly silent about onanism are addicted to this crime, the confessor is regularly held prudently and discreetly to question them, asking, e.g., whether they have sinned against the sanctity of marriage, - or whether there is anything which bites the conscience concerning the use of marriage. If they answer negatively, generally it is not expedient to proceed further. - Therefore those are not to be approved who abstain from every interrogation in this matter, lest they disturb some from good faith.

³ Apud Ami du Clerge, loc. cit., p. 1078-1079.

53. (b) When the confessor, whether from spontaneous confession or from prudent interrogation, knows that the penitent is an onanist, regularly he is held to admonish him concerning the gravity of this sin, just as concerning other mortal sins, and to rebuke him with paternal charity, and to impart absolution to him only then, when it is established from sufficient signs that the same person grieves concerning the past and has a purpose of no longer acting onanistically. - If he has fallen back several times into the same sin, without amendment, let the rules handed down above concerning recidivists, in the Treatise on Penance, be applied.

Nevertheless if the onanist is in good faith, and no good fruit seems able to be hoped for from admonition, the admonition can be omitted until he is better disposed; meanwhile the confessor should gradually prepare him to accept and follow the rules of Christian ethics concerning this matter.

54. (B) The Holy Office, March 30, 1889, wrote to a certain French Archbishop¹: "That you never cease with all care and zeal to extirpate, or certainly to restrain, a pestilence of this sort so calamitous, and to refute the pernicious and immodest doctrines which concerning this matter are circulated by many, especially by cultivators of the medical art. - Therefore in whatever better and more prudent manner you judge can be done, you will take care that the faithful be efficaciously taught that heavenly blessings certainly await the parents of more numerous offspring, and at the same time you will give effort that confessors know the norms handed down on this matter by approved Doctors and especially the decisions issued several times by the Holy See." - Wherefore, - (a) those about to marry are to be admonished that the primary office incumbent upon them is the procreation of children, and that the greatest crime of conjugal life is to impede the conception of offspring. (b) Spouses are to be persuaded that, as regards children to be procreated, they trust in God, who cares for all things, the birds of heaven, the lilies and the grass of the field, and a fortiori men: "Therefore do not be anxious, saying: What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or with what shall we be clothed?... For your Father knows that you need all these things. Seek therefore first the kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things shall be added to you."² (c) Since the chief cause of onanism is unrestrained libido, to the married and unmarried are to be recommended those natural and supernatural means by which pleasure can be tamed, such as hard and diligent labor; moderate chastisements of the body; temperance in food and drink; avoidance of occasions which excite libido; vigilance of mind and heart, by at once driving out slippery thoughts and depraved desires; assiduous prayer; frequent thought of the last things: for brief is whatever delights here, eternal what torments!

¹ Apud Ami du Clerge, XX, 1898, p. 1079.

² Matt., VI, 31-33.

We call every use of marriage other than perfect intercourse incomplete, that is, intercourse so performed that, on the part of the spouses, nothing is lacking for generation.

257. - Complete pleasure sought by spouses in such a manner that they at the same time positively impede generation, or in such a manner that "for the sake of lust the propagation of offspring is opposed ¹," that is, the onanistic use of marriage, is intrinsically and gravely evil.

¹ St. Augustine, De nuptiis et concupiscentia, chapter 15, no. 17 (M. 44, 423).

By the words "for the sake of lust," we do not assert that the exclusion of offspring itself is commanded by lust, since childbirth itself can be morally impossible; but even then, onanists, merely for the enjoyment of carnal pleasure, abuse marriage when they are invited by divine Providence to noble and fruitful continence. Lust, therefore, designates the intention with which they have intercourse, not necessarily that with which they oppose generation.

258. Arguments. 1. The theological argument. Sacred Scripture itself ² declares detestable the fraud by which Onan, lest a son bearing his brother's name rather than a son bearing his own name obtain the primacy of the tribe of Judah, indeed approached the widow of that brother according to the law of the levirate, but spilled his seed upon the ground. And, from the context of the discourse, his brother Er himself seems to have been condemned to death by God for some similar abuse of marriage ³. Nevertheless, we do not wish to press this passage too much, since it is not so clearly established from the text itself whether God struck Onan for the conjugal crime itself or for the fraud mixed with it.

² Genesis 38:9-10.

³ Thus Hummelauer, on this passage.

But Catholic tradition, proceeding from the Holy Fathers themselves ⁴, which the unanimous opinion of theologians and the ordinary magisterium of the Church so attest that there was no need of any formal condemnation of the contrary error, plainly proves the matter.

⁴ Cf., for example, St. Jerome, Epistle 22 to Eustochium, no. 13 (M. 22, 40).

2. The argument of reason. In the onanistic use of marriage, both spouses or either one, carried away by venereal passion, exercise carnal commerce in that manner which deprives the act of its relation to the species and refers it to the spouses alone.

But this use, as such, violates the essential order of man in himself, both as he is an individual person and as he is a part of the human race.

Therefore this use is intrinsically and gravely evil.

It violates man as he is an individual person: for spouses are carried away by passion to act thus against reason, while the essential order of man in himself demands that reason dominate sense.

It violates man as he is a part of the human race and, as such, essentially subordinated to the species. For spouses exercise as an individual and in their own name an act which in its primary rationale is an act of the species, to be exercised by spouses representing the human species and acting for it.

That is, the human race, as it is a moral person, provides for its perpetuity through conjugal intercourse. Onanists positively exclude this perpetuity by the manner in which they unite.

To the consequence. That act is intrinsically and gravely evil. It is intrinsically evil: for, when the notion of onanistic intercourse has been perceived, the malice appears. It is gravely evil because it substantially violates the essential order. But man must attain his end by observing his essential relations.

This rationale is free from every consideration of the importance which that moral uprightness has for private or common good. Indeed, provident God Himself, while imposing the order to be observed, is the guardian and protector of the common good. But we must not weigh what utility or detriment individual acts bring, so that from this we may determine the guilt to be grave or light. Mortal sin, as is demonstrated in the treatise on sin, is formally an act substantially against the order imposed by divine law, but is not formally an act against the common good.

It seems worthwhile for us to speak a little more distinctly or explicitly concerning that specific respect which we have shown to be required in the conjugal act and violated by the onanist.

The venereal appetite, in the first instance, is perceived to be directed toward the common operation of both spouses, which was instituted by God, the author of nature, for the due multiplication of the human race.

It is possible to act against this order, which belongs to the whole faculty, in two ways: either by breaking the relation of the appetite or faculty to the common operation itself, which happens when the appetite is satisfied outside intercourse; or by breaking the relation of the completed operation to the end of nature, when this end is directly impeded.

Now, according to the different manner in which it is exercised ⁵, the onanistic use of marriage breaks either one or both relations.

⁵ Cf. the introduction, no. 45.

The man who withdraws himself or puts on a condom violates the relation to the operation. For then he either interrupts intercourse, or, from the very beginning, deprives intercourse of the essential element of seminal emission, so that in either case pleasure is obtained outside intercourse.

The spouse who, by obstructing the uterus, or destroying spermatozoa, or expelling the semen, renders intercourse artificially sterile violates the relation to the end.

Spouses who, as not rarely happens today, mix the arts in order to obtain a double security from offspring violate both relations.

259. - By our manner of demonstration, various evasions of those abusing marriage are foreclosed: that the use of marriage is permitted to the sterile; that the same use can be limited to those days when there is no or only slight hope of offspring.

For as long as the use of marriage itself is completed in a natural manner, no substantial violation of order is committed; but pleasure is sought from an act which is performed according to reason. For spouses need not be positively solicitous concerning the efficacy of the act for human generation, either because of the order of reason or because of the common good. Not because of the order of reason, since the conjugal act can be reasonable without a positive intention of generating ⁶; not because of the common good, for which provident God has made sufficient provision without this solicitude. Provided that men have intercourse according to the laws of nature, God has so arranged matters that men are born in sufficient number, just as sufficiently many also depart from among the living without the necessity of suicide. But what moral difference there is between omissions of a more suitable manner or time and actions contrary to the end of the institution of marriage, we saw above, no. 238.

⁶ Cf. no. 224.

This also can be added. As long as no other choice besides natural intercourse or continence is allowed, the common good is always served, whether through the use itself, which strengthens the union of the spouses and of itself brings the hope of offspring, or through abstinence itself, which strengthens the soul and renders the mind ready for higher pursuits.

260. - Nevertheless, various reasons which are more extrinsic or are drawn from harmful consequences are usefully alleged, so that they may dispose the mind to grasp the intrinsic rationale more easily and firmly, and may more efficaciously call men away from those wicked counsels.

Accordingly, approximately the following can be proposed.

1. Obvious common sense itself perceives the matter to be evil and grave. Wherefore, anthropologists observe that by intercourse of this kind, because conscience disapproves it, the mutual esteem and love of the spouses are by no means fostered. And since the good of the species is at issue, it is sufficiently manifest that a crime in this matter will be punished by provident God with a most efficacious sanction.

2. But if you consider the innumerable excesses to which the very vehemence of passion, when its reins have been broken, leads; how much it has already harmed the good both of the private household and of the state; how much lamentable increase it has given to "egoistic" pursuits; how widely this disease has already been disseminated or threatens imminent invasion; in what manner the academies themselves and all who are zealous for the fatherland now call with all their desires and efforts for more fruitful marriages: can you doubt that so great a vice is prohibited under grave guilt? From the very harm which it brings to the health and happiness of the spouses, this vice is proved to be abhorrent to nature.

In a word, it can be said that the dignity of marriage is at stake unless this abuse is restrained.

3. But if spouses offer the difficulty of continence as an excuse, let its nobility and merit be extolled. Can they say that to be impassable for themselves which so many men must endure throughout their whole life or choose voluntarily? If they insist that they were not called to continence and that the conjugal state was chosen by them for the conjugal work, it can be answered that many, after a similar choice, have been driven as if by physical necessity to preserve continence, and they can confidently ask and expect from God the grace of continence. Does the moral law bind the conscience less imperiously than physical necessity binds the body? What of the fact that they themselves were often the architects of all their own trouble and difficulty through the imprudent manner in which they chose a spouse?

Nevertheless, that the answer may sound gentler, it can be added that they are not prohibited from imperfect acts (of which mention will be made later); and that there are many spouses who are content with these; also that days less favorable to fertilization can be chosen for the complete act (cf. no. 10).

4. Finally, let them be refuted by the grave words of St. Augustine, or by others similar to them: "Those who do this (oppose the propagation of offspring), although they are called spouses, are not spouses, nor do they retain any reality of marriage, but they extend an honorable name as a covering over their shamefulness ⁷.

⁷ To render this in French words: "Under cover of marriage, an agreement is made for debauchery between two."

"Certainly, if both are such, they are not spouses; and if they were such from the beginning, they came together not by wedlock but rather by debauchery. But if both are not such, I dare to say that either she is in a certain manner her husband's prostitute, or he is his wife's adulterer" (De nuptiis et concupiscentia, chapter 15, no. 17, M. 44, 423. 421).

Cf. also what was said above, no. 209.

261. - Besides those who, unconcerned with doctrine, allege only various pretexts or special reasons for exercising onanistic arts either outside or within marriage, we can gather into two classes those who dare even theoretically to deny and attack the unshaken principles of the right use of marriage.

Some profess that they are solicitous not concerning the number of men but concerning their quality. Let those who are vigorous in body, intellect, and character beget as many children as they can; but for the others let means of sterility be at hand, and indeed at a cheap price, so that thus they may enjoy conjugal pleasure without social harm. Thus, for example, Forel ⁸, who does not wish to be confused with the neo-Malthusians, whom he regards as harmful to the common good.

⁸ La Questione sessuale. Cf. pp. 355, 356, 438, 471 of the Italian version.

Among those who openly defend neo-Malthusian tenets, the secretary of the Malthusian League in England ⁹, Dr. C. G. Drysdale, thus described neo-Malthusianism before the National Birth-Rate Commission on 24 October 1913:

⁹ In other regions also, for example in Holland, a league of this kind has been established.

"Neo-Malthusianism is an ethical doctrine, based on the principle of Malthus that poverty, disease, and premature death can only be eliminated by control of reproduction, combined with a recognition of the evils inseparable from prolonged abstention from marriage. It therefore advocates nearly universal early marriage together with a selective limitation of offspring to those children to whom the parents can give a satisfactory heredity and environment so that they may become desirable members of the community. It further maintains that a universal knowledge of hygienic contraceptive devices among adult men and women would in all probability automatically lead to such a selection through enlightened self-interest, and thus to the elimination of destitution and all the more serious social evils and to the elevation of the race ¹⁰" (The Declining Birth-Rate, p. 89).

¹⁰ That is, in Latin: "Neo-Malthusianism is an ethical doctrine, founded upon the principle by which Malthus asserted that poverty, disease, and premature death cannot be eliminated except by the restriction of generation. It joins that principle with the recognition of the evils which cannot be separated from prolonged abstention from marriage. Wherefore, it commends almost universal early marriage and at the same time a discriminate limitation of offspring, so that only those may be born for whom parents can procure a natural temperament and the external conditions of life, whence they may become desirable members of the community. Moreover, it contends that the general dissemination among adult men and women of hygienic means for avoiding conception would, in all probability, automatically and of itself, with the aid of an enlightened sense of their own utility, bring it about that this selection of offspring take place, and that thus destitution and the worst social misfortunes be suppressed, and the human race ascend to a better state."

Thus both classes are solicitous concerning a better, more perfect human race, and differ little from one another, since both favor the selection of offspring.

But they are deceived by common errors, which we note briefly as follows.

1. They err by that false and fatal principle, "the means are rendered honorable by the end," so that they omit or deny the moral consideration of the means.

I. - On Conjugal Onanism

The Gravity of the Sin. 1. Complete pleasure sought by spouses, even in their mutual relation, in that mode by which at the same time they positively impede generation, i.e., the onanistic use of marriage, is intrinsically and gravely evil.

Catholic tradition, proceeding from the Holy Fathers and contained in the unanimous opinion of theologians and in the ordinary magisterium of the Church, testifies to this; and reason confirms it: for spouses exercise as individuals and in their own name an act which by its primary character is an act of the species, to be exercised by spouses representing the human species and acting for it. Therefore that act contains a substantial violation of the essential order, since it is against the order of the whole generative faculty.

2. The chief neo-Malthusian arts¹ are: a) interrupted coitus; b) mechanical arts of preventing the male semen from being able to penetrate the uterus. (The instrument which, for this end, the man uses is called a condom; while the plug applied to the uterus is called a pessary.) To this can be recalled the placing, within the vagina, of a sufficiently thin membrane in the manner of a pseudo-vagina, into which the semen is emitted. This is then drawn out with the semen; c) internal vaginal washing, by which, after copulation, the vagina having been washed, the semen is expelled. Washing done for the end of sterility is generally made more efficacious by antiseptic substances, by which the semen is killed; d) the sprinkling through the vagina of a chemical substance by which the sperm may be killed.

Concerning these arts the following things are to be observed: copulation is rightly begun by a man who abuses matrimony by mere withdrawal, and an act wholly licit is exercised up to that moment, while it is vitiated from the beginning if the man uses a "condom" - by the pessary which the woman uses copulation itself is not impeded - washing of the vagina takes place after perfect copulation. These things must be attended to for complicity. For:

3. When the man abuses matrimony by mere withdrawal, the whole malice of the act proceeds from the malice of the man; the wife lends her work to a licit matter. Wherefore, considering only cooperation, no special cause is required why she renders the debt; nor, if it is grave for her to be deprived of copulation, is she prohibited from asking copulation. Yet if by the repulse of the wife the husband can be brought sufficiently quickly to using marriage rightly, charity will oblige the wife to procure the amendment of the husband by a denial which is not grave for the wife herself. Likewise a husband whose wife, against the husband's will, wishes to use a pessary or to wash the vagina, must prudently use marital authority to correct the wife.

4. But lest he seem to consent to sin, and so that he may exercise fraternal correction, the other spouse must by warnings and prayers, repeated several times according to hope of fruit, turn the other away from this crime. That is, he must act in such a way: a) that it be clear to the other spouse concerning his persevering repugnance to that sin; b) that, if there is hope of fruit, he may recall the other to conjugal duties.

Gravely, on the contrary, will the spouse sin who, directly or indirectly, by complaints concerning numerous offspring, etc., draws the other into the onanistic use of marriage or confirms the other in it. And he must revoke his evil counsels.

5. The wife can in no way permit the husband to place a pessary in her, or to approach with the male member covered. She can yield only to prevailing force, almost as an unmarried woman who is oppressed. Cf. response of the Sacred Penitentiary, April 3 and June 3, 1916 (De Castitate, n. 263).

Wherefore threats of adultery cannot suffice that the wife passively tolerate the approach of the husband. This grave reason is added. If because of a cause of this sort we permit cooperation, which with difficulty will now be distinguished from formal cooperation, in the intrinsically illicit act of the husband, a convenient means is supplied to husbands for obtaining from pious wives whatever they wish. This notice will soon be spread: "Your pious wife resists you! Allege the will of committing adultery and she will concede to you what you seek." Yet by this general rule we do not wish to comprehend the altogether special case in which, because of concurrent circumstances, a most grave moral fear is inflicted. Then it will belong to confessors to weigh all things prudently: both the things which the husband seeks, and what sort of fear is inflicted.

N.B. - The very full fruition of the woman must be morally joined with the use of marriage, perfect on the part of the man, lest the wife be able fraudulently and perpetually to seek for herself the full use of the venereal faculty outside the operation which of itself bespeaks an order to generation. Yet when copulation is broken off by the will of the man alone, they permit the wife, during the copulation or before it has been begun, to experience and admit perfect delight. (Cf., for example, Lehmkuhl, Theol. mor., I, 1095.) But if from the beginning both have wished only imperfect copulation (with the man withdrawing himself without pollution), the studied procuring of complete pleasure can be conceded to neither, at any moment. But when copulation has been broken off, the wife can neither excite herself nor consent to full delight which has arisen. For that excitation can no longer be added as a complement to the conjugal act which remained imperfect.

¹ Malthus, in the celebrated work Essay on the Principle of Population (London, 1798), preached honest abstinence, "moral restraint," lest the propagation of the human race flourish excessively. Wherefore he was praised by Joseph de Maistre, and also recently by other Catholic writers. Cf., for example, P. Bureau, L'indiscipline des moeurs, P. 3, c. 10. The neo-Malthusians, however, teach and inculcate the same moderation by an artificial manner which deprives spouses of no delight.

Duties of the Confessor and the Preacher. Concerning a matter which is treated so openly, in the newspapers themselves, good faith can scarcely exist in penitents. Those who, while they frequent the sacraments, err in this matter are easily harmful to others by imprudent words or counsels; and because of a light indication, they think the matter is permitted or at least tolerated by the confessor. It is a question of a most grave evil which everywhere, on account of the common good, must be fought. These things having been weighed:

1. Confessor: a) unless by a positive indication it appears that suspicion of this vice does not fall upon the penitent, he will question unknown spouses by a general interrogation whether all things are well in matrimony, whether they are troubled by some scruple; b) those whom he has found to be onanists, he will regularly warn concerning their crime; c) if the spouse, with attention to the mode by which the excess is committed, can begin copulation well or admit it when begun, he will instruct that spouse concerning this faculty, lest he begin or continue to commit formal sins; d) in some rare case, where good faith has been surrounded by extraordinary circumstances, and the danger of scandal has disappeared together with the danger of excessive abuse, he will press down the fault in silence. Good faith will more easily be present in a wife who, having denied assent, thinks that she can cast all fault upon the husband, and does not distinguish among the modes by which the abuse is committed; or also in grave sickness. Nor then are excessive abuses to be feared of themselves.

2. Preacher: The preacher, especially the habitual one, or he to whom, as pastor, it belongs to provide for the salvation and good morals of the faithful, must hand on to the people the whole evangelical truth.

And these things are to be performed regularly and prudently. We say regularly, on account of accidental exceptions; prudently, with attention to the quality and authority of the sacred minister, with consideration of the people, who can be firm or weak in faith, at least in part immune from the contagion of the vice or already morally wholly indulging the vice, and long accustomed already to have silent pastors; also with attention to the mode, which is not necessarily a vehement rebuke or increpation, but can also retain the sweetness of a calm exposition.

Come now, that we may define something more exactly, according to our powers, concerning a matter so grave and so daily:

a) negatively: never can a sacred minister, whether preaching or hearing confessions, so act, speak, or be silent that he deservedly seems to connive at onanism.

Nor can he foster by counsel, nor simply approve, sterility sought by imperfect penetration of the vagina (Holy Office, November 22-23, 1921, Per. XII), since he cannot be the author or approver even of a venial sin.

Never, even in the most miserable parish, can a pastor, conscious of general abuse, tolerate such a condition with a resigned mind in such a way that he no longer applies any attempt to eradicating it prudently.

Never, as confessor, can he absolve a penitent who at the time, certainly on account of his subjective ignorance, cannot be judged at least probably disposed.

b) Positively, however: in a parish in which the vice is not yet established or general, preachers and confessors must by open preaching and opportune warning in the tribunal of penance take care that there be no departure from right moral principles.

But in a parish where the abuse has already generally prevailed and by the long silence of confessors has been as it were strengthened, a new pastor can, before he denounces the grave obligation or openly condemns the abuse, prepare minds to receive the truth with ears well docile or at least patient, with the negative requisites just listed always meanwhile preserved.

A missionary preacher will be able to abstain from an untimely warning. And you should observe that, more than in secret confession, in public preaching of the divine word, obedience is to be given to the pastor who invited him, and much more to the Ordinary.

Moreover, effort must be made that by common counsels the deliberate action be more uniform and therefore efficacious. Nor is the duty to ask the local Ordinary in more difficult matters to be passed over, whose commands can also induce more uniform action.

Corollary. No washing of the vagina for expelling semen and impeding generation is licit, but it contains the guilt of attempted (usually vainly) onanism, just as the wife sins by intention who, by an ineffective manner (a vain remedy, restraining her own distillation, rising to urinate), has wished to render copulation sterile. Nor will she be able to obey a husband commanding such things, unless she first has warned him concerning his error.

Yet it is lawful from the vagina and from the uterus itself to expel non-fecundated semen which a woman, having suffered force, has received unwillingly: it is a mode of repelling an unjust aggressor.

Vaginal washing done for another end seems lawful already after an hour from copulation, since then it no longer morally impedes generation. Those who require an interval of six hours tacitly suppose that no loss of semen, not even partial, can be permitted.

II. - On Other Excesses

I. He who has completed the conjugal act outside the due vessel must declare this character of the sin, even if sodomitical affection was absent. For it contains a special violation of the sanctity of marriage, of the duty of mutual piety, and, if the wife was not formally an accomplice, injustice. But in what abominable part the thing was done does not regard the species.

He also is injurious who, when the other reasonably dissents, has interrupted copulation, even short of pollution, since each has a right to perfect copulation.

Pollutions excited by mutual touches are gravely opposed to the sanctity of marriage and to the duties of conjugal piety, so that the circumstance of marriage is to be indicated.

II. Complete pleasure sought or admitted separately by either spouse adds to the malice of pollution a grave malice against justice or the sanctity of marriage. For since, from the mutual handing over of bodies, one spouse possesses the body of the other for complete venereal use, if he has done it against the will of the other, he sins by the sin of imperfect adultery; but if the other spouse assents, he nevertheless without doubt has violated the sanctity of marriage, in which God wills that that faculty be reserved for the common use of both.

III. Exterior perfect or imperfect venereal acts exercised with other persons add to the malice of lust the malice of complete or incomplete adultery.

By the assent of the other spouse, the peculiar character of injustice is removed, on account of the universal principle: no injury is done to one consenting; yet there remains the special malice of violated sanctity of marriage, so that the sin does not become simple fornication, as proposition 50, condemned by Innocent XI, March 2, 1679, as at least scandalous and pernicious in practice, asserted.

Thus adultery committed against the will of the spouse and adultery committed with the assent of the spouse are specifically distinguished. Some deny this, because the right of the spouse is inalienable; but the consent by which injury is removed is not necessarily the consent of one alienating a right: the consent of one not opposing his right suffices. But it pertains to the very essence of a right that it always be in the power of the one having it to oppose or not to oppose the right.

Double adultery, which is committed by a sinning spouse with the spouse of another, must be accused as such, because, besides his own principal act, he must declare the complicity with the other's principal act; nor can he positively deceive the confessor, who without that declaration would understand adultery with one not married.

Shameful conversations are not judged to be terminated to the persons conversing in such a way that, from their quality, they put on a new species as such.

IV. Interior acts are to be judged from the object, which, when it is a question of a spouse, can be honest, or befouled by an adulterous or sacrilegious affection.

V. By marriage attempted with another person, the spouse sins most gravely against the sanctity of marriage, piety, and justice toward the other spouse. He also is unjust who illicitly separates himself from the other spouse, or asks for civil divorce.

I. 1. Lawful Copulation. Copulation, honest in object between spouses, by which, according to the opinion more received today, marriage is consummated, is lawfully asked for begetting offspring, for testifying love, for calming concupiscence, indeed for seeking delight temperately. But the petition of the other is a sufficient reason for the other to render, unless grave harm stands in the way, whether one's own, or that of the other spouse, or of offspring already conceived.

Very rarely will there be certainty of such harm from a future birth as would prohibit copulation under grave sin.

As to circumstances, one doubtfully impotent can attempt copulation; but not one certainly impotent, unless in the very attempt there is a probable remedy and the introduction of semen is procured according to his powers.

Even sterility badly procured, at least if it is going to be perpetual or long-lasting or if abstinence is too difficult, does not prohibit the use of marriage.

In weighing promises and vows, attention is to be given to the efficacy of a new mutual consent, and to the power of invalidating vows, whether indirect in each spouse, or probably direct in the husband. Vows, however, do not remove rights, but induce an obligation of religion.

Copulation is prohibited at no time, with the general laws of prudence and mutual friendship preserved.

No mode of copulation is prohibited, at least under grave sin, which permits sufficient semination within the vessel. Application to the mouth of the vagina does not of itself give sufficient probability of fecundation for that mode to be chosen, at least when another is possible. Besides, the very character of copulation seems to be lacking here.

To abstain from copulation on certain days, lest offspring be generated, is not grave; indeed it can be honest; but with direct intention it is not lawful in the act of copulation to squander even part of the semen outside the vessel.

By previous pollution, semen cannot be procured even for artificial fecundation. But useful means (even by images) for provoking the necessary excitation of copulation are not to be disapproved.

A secret place is required for copulation, so that spouses, if by chance discovered, can break off copulation.

One doubting concerning the value of matrimony is forbidden at least to ask copulation before investigation. If the doubt has been insoluble, the use of matrimony is not to be prohibited. Nor is it certain that the case of doubt concerning the impediment of ligamen must be excepted, at least if then a probable reason, independent of the possession of marriage, counsels the value of the new covenant. Nor does a suit having been moved concerning the value of marriage alter the faculty of copulation.

2. Copulation Owed. Copulation must be rendered from justice to the one reasonably and seriously asking it. Yet a just cause excuses from rendering the debt. Too greatly multiplied offspring is not such a cause.

Assent does not seem to be owed to one illicitly asking. The very right of demanding is lost by adultery or a similar abuse, as also by valid abdication of the right. Charity and piety themselves can impose the duty of asking.

3. The Use of Marriage to Be Desired is that which is done by mutual consent, willingly and with moderate frequency (the appetite itself having been considered). And it is to be commended that spouses experience the heat of pleasure at the same time. Yet for honesty it suffices that, the man's pollution outside the vessel being avoided, the heats be morally joined.

II. The incomplete use of marriage is permitted also to spouses, since it is referred to the complete honest act and assists at least the secondary ends of matrimony.

Wherefore, excluding affection for an unnatural act or excessive danger of pollution, no mode of imperfect act is forbidden to them under grave sin. Indeed, on account of the end of marriage, there is none which cannot become honest. Yet acts gravely influencing of themselves toward pollution cannot be exercised by spouses unless in circumstances where, pollution urging, they can and will complete the conjugal act, or unless a grave cause otherwise demands them. But acts joined with morally certain pollution (the direct effecting of pollution always excluded) are forbidden to them under grave sin unless in circumstances where spouses can and will complete copulation. Perhaps, on account of a most grave cause, a certain material cooperation of the spouse can be tolerated. But custom brings it about that certain acts for them no longer have the character of begun pollution.

The best counsel is that spouses, in their intimate conversation, strive to compose personal dignity with tender affection.

III. Excluding grave danger of pollution, solitary imperfect acts will be honest if they are formally referred to copulation; nor even when exercised separately do they seem able to be blamed under grave sin, since the order to copulation is never entirely removed.

IV. Lust of Spouses. The onanistic use of marriage is intrinsically and gravely to be blamed: since spouses then exercise, as individuals, with the order to the species violently dissolved, an act which belongs to the species and is for the sake of the species.

Yet if copulation is rightly begun or rightly done, the spouse who strives sufficiently to turn the other away from the deadly counsel can cooperate with that copulation materially and even actively, yet taking care not to procure for himself a separate venereal satiety. And because it is a question of a public and spreading evil, the preacher or confessor cannot by his silence connive at this profanation of marriage, but both, and especially the pastor, must take care lest the community be infected by this vice; and if it has been infected, they cannot refuse or interrupt work for its healing, with effort at once prudent and constant.

Special malice in spouses is had by: a) conjugal acts completed outside the due vessel, pollutions procured by mutual touches or separately;

b) perfect or imperfect venereal acts done with other persons (except conversations of themselves, since they are not judged to be terminated to the other person). These add to the malice of lust the malice of complete or incomplete adultery. The assent of the other removes the note of injury, but not the specific malice of violated sanctity of marriage, from adultery.

Interior acts are to be judged from the object.

By marriage itself attempted with another person, or by civil divorce, or by illicit separation from bed and board, one sins against the sanctity of marriage, piety, and justice.

The Encyclical brands in the first place the base selfishness and the audacious lie of many who dare to call the

child “the disagreeable burden of matrimony”;¹ it brands the “criminal abuse”² of those who avoid children by frustrating the marriage act, whether they wish to gratify their passions without the consequent burden, or whether they excuse themselves on the ground of two concurrent impossibilities: that they cannot on the one hand remain continent, nor on the other have children. This last impossibility is claimed to exist either because of personal difficulties, or the condition of the mother, or family circumstances.

¹ P. 37.

² The same work.

He rejects them all at one sweep by reminding us:¹ No reason, however grave, may be put forward by which anything intrinsically against nature may become conformable to nature and morally good. Conjugal relations debased in this way are nothing more than “a form of debauchery which the world has come to look upon as regular and permissible.”²

¹ P. 38.

² Paul Bureau, L’Indiscipline des moeurs.

He does this in three ways: 1. By a proof from natural reason. It is a violation of nature to deliberately deflect from its natural end an act which belongs to the rational order to which we are subject. Now the marital act belongs to that superior order to which we are all subject. And its natural purpose is procreation. Hence any artifice which deprives the conjugal act of this its destiny is necessarily and always a violation of nature. 2. By Holy Scripture. According to the interpretation which is accepted in the Church, God struck Onan dead because he was guilty of this sin. 3. He proves it from the teaching of the Church, where he states that an uninterrupted traditional Christian teaching reprobates these practices, and where he solemnly confirms this teaching of the ordinary magisterium of the Church.

Before formally answering so grave a question it seems proper to quote the words of the Sovereign Pontiff himself.

Since, therefore, openly departing from the uninterrupted Christian tradition, some recently have judged it possible solemnly to declare another doctrine regarding this question, the Catholic Church, to whom God had entrusted the defense of the integrity and purity of morals, standing erect in the midst of the moral ruin which surrounds her, in order that she may preserve the chastity of the nuptial union from being defiled by this foul stain, raises her voice in token of Divine ambassadorship and through Our mouth proclaims anew: Any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offence against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin.¹ Next, let us remember that the Pope, either alone or in union with the College of the Bishops, is the teaching Church, whose infallibility is guaranteed by Our Lord Jesus Christ. The Church speaks through the Pope, not as through her messenger, but as through her head and teacher. This mission of teaching and of defending the integrity of morals to which the Holy Father appeals here, is in himself. Infallible, in matters of faith and morals, is the traditional and constant doctrine of the Church treasured in the ordinary magisterium of the Bishops united to the See of Peter. Infallible is the solemn proclamation of a doctrine regarding faith or morals which the supreme Pastor, speaking as such to the universal Church, obliges it to hold. To what conclusion do these considerations lead us? We must conclude that the Holy Father, who, in this Encyclical, from the start, declares that he is addressing himself to the entire Church and even to the whole world: (a) States that on this question of conjugal onanism, there exists a Christian doctrine which has been transmitted from the beginning and which has been always faithfully kept, and hence is already infallibly taught by the ordinary magisterium; (b) Takes occasion from the departure from this doctrine on the part of some to promulgate it solemnly for all; and since he does this as teacher of the universal Church, conscious of his mission to teach, and as a sign of his Divine mission, he thereby obliges all to hold this doctrine. It is,

as he explicitly states, the Catholic Church which speaks by his mouth. In the presence of such language on the part of the supreme Pastor,² we cannot doubt that we are confronted with one of those cases, which are not infrequent, where the Pope teaches infallibly a truth already defined and believed by the Church. This is the reason why the Sovereign Pontiff can also declare himself an infallible interpreter of the primitive Church.³

¹ P. 38.

² The phrase in which the Holy Father declares that the Catholic Church speaks through his mouth on this subject, “is extremely solemn and impressive.” Dr. John Ryan, Ecclesiastical Review, 1931, p. 265, “The Moral Teaching of the Encyclical.”

³ We admit, however, that there are some very estimable priests who hesitate to recognize this as an infallible declaration ex cathedra distinct from the equally infallible teaching of the ordinary magisterium. On the other hand, a professor of theology, after a personal study of the passage, said to us: “If that is not an infallible definition, I do not know what terms the Pope could use in order to make one.” The manner in which the Belgian Bishops in their Pastoral on the Encyclical represent the role assumed by the Vicar of Jesus Christ in this memorable document, serves only to confirm our conviction. See Z. H. Paus, Pius XI, Wereld-brief “Casti Connubii” en het Belgisch Episcopaat (Vastenbrief 1931) over het Christelijk Huwelijk, p. 53.

These three: (a) Every use of marriage in the exercise of which the act is artificially deprived of its natural power of procreating life, is a violation of the law of God; (b) It is a violation of the natural law; (c) It is a grave sin.

That all preventive measures whose purpose is to make future marital intercourse sterile, whether temporarily or permanently, are also intrinsically wrong, and are also grievously sinful. More than once before, the Holy See had expressed itself rather clearly on this subject. On April 19, 1853, the Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office, without going into details, declared that such an abuse of marriage is intrinsically evil. Then the Sacred Penitentiary, November 13, 1901, approved the action of a priest who refused to follow the direction of a confessor who was otherwise well-qualified and who had been professor of moral theology in a seminary, where the confessor had held that in order to avoid an excessive number of children or excessive fatigue on the part of the wife, a husband might vitiate the conjugal act, provided he had in view only the allaying of concupiscence. The Sacred Penitentiary declared that a penitent who refused to give up such a practice could not be absolved, as it amounted to onanism pure and simple.

They are the prelates of the Anglican Church, who numbering 307 in congress at Lambeth Palace in London, by a majority of 193 to 67, declared, in nebulous terms it is true and not without some signs of shame, that in certain cases where procreation was forbidden, another voice than that of continence might be followed.¹ The count indicates that many refused to vote. Since in its report the Commission of the Conference acknowledged the tradition to which the Pope appeals, but observed that the tradition lacked the confirmation of a conciliar definition, we think it probable that the Holy Father intended by a solemn declaration to fill what might falsely be regarded as a lacuna.

¹ See our article: La Conférence de Lambeth et la Morale du Mariage, Nouvelle Revue Théologique, Dec., 1930.

Far from it. Coming to a very important practical conclusion, he immediately adds:¹ We admonish, therefore, priests who hear confessions, and others who have the care of souls, in virtue of Our supreme authority and in Our solicitude for the salvation of souls, not to allow the Faithful entrusted to them to err regarding this most grave law of God; much more, that they keep themselves immune from such false opinions, in no way conniving in them. If any confessor or pastor of souls, which may God forbid, lead the Faithful entrusted to him into these errors or should at least confirm them by approval or by guilty silence, let him be mindful of the fact that he must render a strict account to God, the Supreme Judge, for the betrayal of his sacred trust, and let him take to himself the words of Christ: "They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both fall into the pit” (St. Matth. xv, 14). This grave warning is in itself an obligatory standard for those to whom it is addressed, that is, confessors and those

who have care of souls. In fact, the Holy Father gives it in virtue of his supreme authority and as universal Pastor. He, therefore, warns those who hear confessions and who have the care of souls: (a) not to leave the Faithful who are entrusted to them in error regarding this grave law of God; (b) to preserve themselves from false opinions in this matter; (c) to connive in no way in false opinions on this subject. Consequently, he threatens with a severe account to be rendered to God: (a) those among them who should lead the Faithful into error; (b) those who might confirm them in their error, either by formal approval or deliberate silence. Former declarations of the Holy See define in a very useful way the attitudes on the part of confessors which are condemned in this passage of the Encyclical, and the duty of all confessors to avoid all connivance and even to undeceive penitents who have fallen into error on a point of such grave moral and social consequence. A priest of the diocese of Angers, in a query to the Sacred Penitentiary, described three classes of confessors. (1) Those of the first class, believing that ignorance even if it be vincible excuses from grave sin, and being persuaded that to call attention to the abuse of marriage would only increase the guilt of the parties and even perhaps keep them away from the Sacraments, conclude that it is licit and even advisable to favor this error on the part of penitents, by not disturbing it, or even by adroitly insinuating it, provided that can be done without lying. Consequently, they not only ask no questions on the subject, but even when the question of the gravity of the guilt of onanism is put to them, they evade it by skillful parrying, or they ask the penitent what he himself thinks of it. And when the latter declares that in view of the rights of marriage or of some other consideration “he can't see so much harm in it,” these confessors are glad to leave him in this good faith. (2) Others, although they hold the same views as those of the still do not conceal the truth if they are asked about it; first class, but when the penitent confines himself to simply confessing the sin of onanism, they take care not to lay an emphasis on this accusation, but, having heard the confession, they content themselves with arousing the penitent to contrition in a general way, and they absolve him on his affirmation that he detests all sin. (3) A third class of confessors are of opinion that it is extremely rare that vincible ignorance can go so far as to render subjectively venial a sin which is objectively grave, and that such error can in any event not last very long—the character of the sin itself as being contrary to nature, the environment in which the question is constantly being discussed, prevent that. Hence, whether the avowal of this sin has been spontaneous, or whether it has been brought out by prudent questioning, these confessors chide the penitent who has

been guilty of this sin, just as they would for any other grave sin, to the extent that his interest seems to require it, and they absolve him only when they have elicited from him sufficient signs of repentance and of a firm purpose of amendment for the future. Following this exposition, three questions were submitted to the Sacred Penitentiary: 1. Is it allowed to favor the good faith spoken of in the first instance? Is it allowed to produce it? 2. Do the confessors of the second class fulfil the duties of their state? 3. Are the confessors of the third class open to the reproach of disturbing themselves and their penitents more than is reasonable; or is their practice rather to be regarded as absolutely right? The Sacred Penitentiary answered the first two questions in the negative. To the third, it replied: “Assuming that, as regards the questions sometimes to be asked of married persons about their use of marriage, these confessors confine themselves within the limits indicated by the Roman Ritual and by approved authorities, their practice is beyond all reproach.” Ten years later, in 1886, a French Bishop addressed himself to the Sacred Penitentiary. After bewailing the spread of the evil which is now committed no longer for fear of having too many children, but for fear of having any, an evil which has depleted the country and the sanctuary, and has alarmed sociologists and moralists alike, the Bishop refers to the disagreement which exists among confessors on the need of questioning penitents, in modest and reserved language, upon this matter. In support of the position of those confessors who think that they are not allowed to remain mute, he cites the words of Benedict XIV in his Bull “Apostolica Constitutio”: “By such silence the penitent is either kept in ignorance of crimes which he ought to know about, or he is confirmed in the evil practice, not without scandal to others who think that anything is lawful for themselves when they see that it is practised with impunity by persons who are frequenting the Sacraments.” Then, proceeding to his questions, the Bishop asks: 1. When a confessor has reason to suspect that the penitent, who says not a word of birth control, is addicted to this criminal practice, may the confessor omit to question him prudently and discreetly because he foresees that by doing so he will disturb the good faith of some persons and cause many to avoid the Sacraments? Is not the confessor rather bound to question the penitent in a prudent and discreet manner? 2. When a confessor knows, either from spontaneous confession or as a result of prudent questioning, that the penitent is given to birth control, is he bound to warn him of the gravity of this sin as of other mortal sins, and (as the Roman Ritual puts it) to chide him with paternal charity, and to give him absolution only when from sufficient indications he shall judge that he repents of the past and has the purpose of never practising onanism any more? “In view of the fact,” thus spoke the Sacred Penitentiary, “that the abominable vice of which there is question in the case proposed, has become widespread, the Sacred Penitentiary has deemed it its

duty to reply to the questions asked as follows: To the first question usually, in the negative to the first part, in the affirmative to the second. To the second question: in the affirmative, according to the teaching of approved authorities.” These replies tell us clearly enough that questions should not be asked without reason, but only when there is ground for suspicion that the crime is being dissimulated or concealed; that the fear of disturbing good faith or of driving away from the Sacraments should not regularly stop a confessor from questioning; that when a penitent is known to be guilty, he must be informed of the gravity of the sin. Certainly, as a professor of theology remarked not long ago, we cannot, by lightly giving absolutions, put the sacramental seal upon immorality. It goes without saying that the questioning must always be done in correct language, rather reserved, but clear and leaving no room for misunderstanding or evasion.²

¹ P. 39.

² On the manner of questioning, a helpful article will be found in L’Ami du Clergé, Le devoir des confesseurs, pp. 185-187 (1931).

The Holy Father makes no pronouncement for particular exceptional cases. The general practice must be to undeceive the Faithful when they are in error on this matter; and one may never positively confirm them in error, even by silence which would be interpreted as approval. But, in the absence of scandal and of any positive confirmation, a genuine good faith may, in our opinion, be left to spouses who are embarrassed by a humanly inextricable situation. See, for example, the excellent Instructio pro confessaris de usu et abusu matrimonii written at Eichstatt Seminary, 1931.

Because there are cases of so-called good faith which are such only in appearance. For example a Catholic who, though he knew the teaching of the Encyclical, preferred to follow his own judgment on the plea that the severity of that teaching was extreme, could not be considered to be in good faith.

On the contrary it evidences a just moderation. (a) It excuses the party who suffers rather than commits sin, when for a perfectly weighty reason he tolerates on the part of his partner a perversion of the right order, which he himself does not intend, and fulfils his duty of charity by striving to induce the other party to return to right conduct.¹ (b) It mentions the other secondary ends of the conjugal union: mutual affection to be fostered, the allaying of concupiscence;—two ends which render the use of marriage lawful under circumstances in which, considering either the persons or the time, sterility seems either certain or very probable, provided always that the act takes place in the regular way.²

¹ P. 39.

² Ibid.

Among well-intentioned Anglicans there are several authorities who are of opinion that the vocation to the married life imposes on the parties the duty to give children to their country and to the Church, if they can.¹ This is, however, a false position. The possession of a right may be conceived without the obligation to use it. No doubt, in the institution of marriage, God wished to provide for the propagation of the human race. But this end is sufficiently attained without every couple being obliged to have children.

¹ This thesis is advanced notably by H. L. Goudge, D.D., Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, in his monograph, “The Question of Contraceptives” (London, League of National Life, 1931).

As the Holy Father has no intention of coming down to details of practical morality, we must evidently have recourse to approved authorities and to former declarations of the Holy See. According to this teaching, there is question of cooperation in an act which was begun in the right way, and which the other party alone interrupts in such a way as to violate nature.

We are therefore, for our part, unable to agree with the passage in which Reverend John Ryan of Washington, in his notes on the moral teaching of the Encyclical, insinuates that the Encyclical may extend the field of permissible material cooperation in the face of the common opinion now existing on the subject.¹ The distinctions which the moralists make are founded on a certain principle and are confirmed by the replies of the Sacred Penitentiary of April 3 and June 3, 1916.²

¹ “The Moral Teaching of the Encyclical,” Ecclesiastical Review (1931), p. 266.

² Cf. Vermeersch, De Castitate, n. 253.

The Encyclical says: Nor are those considered as acting against nature who in the married state use their right in the proper manner although on account of natural reasons either of time or of certain defects, new life cannot be brought forth.² As long as the act takes place normally it remains objectively directed toward its primary end, which is generation; and since, according to the maxim that the purpose of the law is not within the matter of the law (finis legis non cadit sub legem), there is no obligation, while observing the law, to intend the end for which it was promulgated, it follows that the act is not necessarily vitiated by deliberately choosing a certain time with the intention of avoiding conception. Of course, the couple are bound to welcome any children that might come, if, as sometimes happens, their plan fails. The conjugal intercourse in any event serves the other ends of marriage. Besides, let us observe that there is this great difference between the practise of birth control and the restricted use of marriage of which we speak: the abuses of birth control can be practised constantly, they give free rein to passion, they do not demand the exercise of any moral force whatever; whereas this limited use of marriage requires, for the voluntary abstinence on certain

days, a moral force the exercise of which is not without its social value. In itself indifferent or objectively good, this limitation which is not a violation of nature, may, according to the circumstances and the intention, be praiseworthy, less desirable, or even worthy of blame.³ Accordingly the Sacred Penitentiary, in its reply of June 16, 1880, declared that there was no reason to disturb those married people who in their use of marriage restricted themselves to days that are physiologically sterile, and that this practice might be insinuated caute, that is with prudent discretion. With prudent discretion we say; the uncertainty of the result is enough to suggest prudence; besides the confessor should not be a counselor of infecundity. The insinuation of this course of action may be appropriate as a means of preventing formal sins, or as offering a way out of a critical situation where the danger of incontinence makes intercourse imperative, and yet where conception would be perilous for the mother. It goes without saying that this practice normally supposes the agreement of both parties.

¹ The latest researches of Dr. Knaus of Germany and Dr. Ogino of Japan lead to the conclusion that these periods include the last days before and the first days after the monthly period of the woman. Or, more exactly, if we suppose a cycle of 28 days, it would be ten days before and ten days after the beginning of the last menstruation period; if the cycle is not of 28 days, the number ten should be increased by one for every day the cycle is above 28, and diminished by one for every day it is below 28. But no absolute guarantee can be given. The theory itself is only seriously probable — not absolutely certain, and various causes may upset the calculations. Several ecclesiastical magazines have recently dealt with this question, notably the Collationes Brugenses, 1930, p. 360; 443; 1931, p. 178, articles by Rev. M. Coucke; also the Nederlandsche Katholicke Stemmen 1931, p. 41, by Rev. P. Buysse, C.SS.R.

² P. 39.

³ Studien (Malmberg, s’ Hertogenbosch, March, 1931) Periodieke Onthouding by Rev. Heymeyer, S.J.

Because these other ends, subordinated as they are to the principal end, cannot be in opposition to it. Besides, the other ends themselves would be frustrated by wrong relations. Such relations cannot foster true love, which supposes mutual respect; too often they result only in disagreement and separation. Neither does the seeking of satisfaction at all costs allay concupiscence. “It is like a drink which increases thirst.”¹

¹ Fahsel, Ehe, Liebe und Sexualproblem (Herder, 1931).

Some, of which any decent person should be ashamed, the Encyclical disdains to mention; but it could not be indifferent in the presence of the extremely difficult situation in which a poor mother may find herself. Here, it begins by toning down the alarms with the remark, so often

confirmed by experience, that the reasons for alarm are often exaggerated; then, showing an affectionate compassion and at the same time giving encouragement to the mother who is face to face with death through heroic devotion to duty, it expresses admiration for her and assures her of a magnificent reward from God.¹

¹ P. 39.

On this subject also the Holy Father shows a deep feeling of compassion for the parents. However, he immediately lifts up their hearts to the high reality of God's law. However [he adds] these parents should take care lest the calamitous state of their external affairs should be the occasion for a much more calamitous error. No difficulty can arise that justifies the putting aside of the law of God which forbids all acts intrinsically evil. There is no possible circumstance in which husband and wife cannot, strengthened by the grace of God, fulfil faithfully their duties and preserve in wedlock their chastity unspotted.¹

¹ P. 39.

I. Unnatural concubitus with a woman (tegennatuurlijke vrouwenbeslaping) is that which does not preserve the mode indicated by nature, in such a way that the possibility of generation is thereby impeded. Hence by that very fact it is against nature and gravely sinful, because it is directly opposed to the natural end of the genital act.

It can be against nature in two ways:

1. on the part of the organ in which copulation is had, while it is not exercised in the natural vessel, that is, the female genital canal, but in an unnatural vessel and undue organ, namely in the posterior vessel or in the mouth. It is called sodomy improperly so called, because it imitates true sodomy;

2. on the part of the mode alone, if copulation is exercised in the natural vessel and due organ, the female genital canal, but in such a way that, from the very mode by which the action is carried out, generation is impeded: either because the man withdraws himself before insemination and pours out semen outside the female genital canal, or because he himself or the woman employs instruments or other means by which the semen is impeded from passing to the uterus. It is called onanism, from the deed narrated concerning Onan (Gen. XXXVIII, 9). For if only the natural and due mode in situation, place, or time is not preserved, yet in such a way that generation is not impeded, the mode is only beside nature (ongepaste or ongewone wijze), not against nature, nor evil of itself gravely.

II. Onanism can be done in various ways:

1. on the part of the man: a. if he begins copulation in the female genital canal but withdraws himself before insemination and pours out semen outside the female genital canal; b. if he clothes the virile member or only its glans with some thin covering or sheath, a condom,¹ capote anglaise, within which the emitted semen is retained;

¹ It is so called because it had Doctor Condom as inventor.

2. on the part of the woman: a. if she uses an occlusive pessary (sterilet), that is, a certain thing introduced into the lowest part of the female genital canal for closing the mouth of the uterus, for example a metallic barrier, sponge, cotton, threads of linen, and so forth; b. if she uses a pseudo-vagina, that is, a thin membrane arranged within the whole female genital canal in which semen is emitted.

Besides these unnatural modes of lying together, there are other modes by which, after the action has been completed, conception is impeded, for example washing of the female canal by which, by means of a syringe or irrigator after copulation, semen is expelled by water or an antiseptic substance; or, immediately before or after copulation, the sprinkling of a chemical substance, for example anticonceptional powder, or the injection of an acidic liquid by which semen is killed. But these modes are rather against justice, to which they are opposed per se, than against chastity, to which they are opposed per accidens because of the intention of the agent. Besides, there are several unjust modes by which offspring already conceived is impeded from being born or living, for example abortion or craniotomy.

III. Observations. 1. Pollution done between the arms, legs, breasts, and so forth, of a woman is not imperfect sodomy; neither is it so in affection unless there is affection toward an undue organ. It is pollution with affection of fornication.

2. In sodomy improperly so called, it must be expressed whether pollution was present; for it is consummated by the emission of semen.

Now the mode of sinning by excess against nature very frequent in modern times is onanism.¹ It is copulation in the female canal sought in that mode by which generation is positively impeded and cannot follow from the effusion of semen; this can be done in various modes described above.² It is mortal sin, as directly contrary to the primary end of marriage and opposed to conjugal fidelity, a mere abuse of the genital organs against the order instituted by God, by which they pervert a most noble thing into the basest act of a passion of ignominy. For it lacks order to the natural end of semen and to the good of the species. Hence the malice is intrinsic to the act, to such an extent that no cause, however urgent, can render it honorable.

¹ That practice is often called neo-Malthusianism. For economic reasons Malthus (1798) had proposed the limitation of conception, but by licit means, namely by abstaining from the conjugal act. Now, however, neo-Malthusians promote illicit means.

² Question IV, article 4, nn. 1 and 2. Yet none is altogether certain. For the preservative garment, condom or pseudo-vagina, can be torn; the occlusive pessary can be badly adapted or, during copulation, moved from its place; simple withdrawal or washing of the female canal do not always impede some sperm from being ejaculated before withdrawal, or already passing into the uterus before washing; a chemical substance sprinkled through the whole female genital canal before copulation does not always have perfect efficacy.

This is the doctrine of the Church, which shines forth from proposition 49 condemned by Innocent XI and from the many and repeated declarations of the Holy Office (May 20, 1851; April 19, 1853; March 26, 1897; November 23, 1922) and of the Sacred Penitentiary (twelve times from November 15, 1816 to June 3, 1916), most recently from the encyclical Casti Connubii, in which Pius XI did not hesitate to declare that this is the very Christian doctrine handed down from the beginning and always: "Since therefore certain persons, manifestly departing from Christian doctrine handed down from the very beginning and never interrupted, have lately judged that another doctrine concerning this manner of acting should be solemnly preached, the Catholic Church, to whom God himself has committed the teaching and defense of integrity and honesty of morals, placed in the midst of this ruin of morals, in order to preserve the chastity of the nuptial covenant immune from this base stain, in sign of her divine legation, lifts up her voice aloud through our mouth and promulgates anew: any use whatever of marriage in the exercise of which, by the industry of men, it is deprived of its natural power of procreating life, infringes the law of God and of nature, and those who have committed such a thing are stained with the blot of grave fault." Here three things are affirmed: the use of marriage which by industry is deprived of its power of generating, 1. is against divine law; 2. is against the law of nature; and 3. is grave sin.

II. Hence concerning onanism the following conclusions are established:

1. The onanist man cannot be absolved unless he repents and resolves; likewise the woman formally cooperating or consenting, or who tries to expel semen by washings. Indeed, he who uses a preservative means is bound to destroy it as an occasion of sin before absolution; this per se and regularly must be urged by the confessor.

2. The wife does not sin if for a moderately grave cause she renders the debt to an onanist husband withdrawing himself before insemination, or even seeks it from him; but the cause is grave if otherwise she incurs grave evils, for example dissensions in marriage, blows, adultery of the husband, her own incontinence or long abstinence from the use of marriage,³ and so forth. The reason is that the action begins in the due mode, in such a way that of itself it is apt for generation; but if it is terminated unduly, the whole guilt stands on the part of the man, and on the part of the woman there is only material and mediate cooperation, which can be offered to the sin of another because of a grave motive. For this, says Pius XI, is to suffer sin rather than to perpetrate it. This is to be understood provided the wife does not consent to the mode itself of acting against nature, but detests it and bears herself merely passively toward it; otherwise there would be formal cooperation. Nevertheless she could actively cooperate, by exciting herself immediately before copulation and during it, and rejoice in pleasure, even perfect, as long as the action is done in the due mode; likewise she may rejoice in the good effect of such copulation, for example in preservation from the troubles and labors of pregnancy or childbirth, although this is dangerous.⁴

³ Hence she can seek copulation from the man withdrawing himself, and only sometimes, namely once or another time, is she bound to abstain by reason of charity; not more often, because this would already be a grave inconvenience, while charity nevertheless does not oblige with grave inconvenience for avoiding merely passive scandal.

⁴ The same holds theoretically for the man, when before insemination the woman withdraws herself; but in practice ordinarily there is not a grave sufficient reason on the part of the man, because he can rather easily impede the withdrawal of the woman, even by physical force.

Yet even then, because of charity, the woman is bound to warn the man and show her own repugnance, and this not once or another time but often, not however inopportunely but opportunely. Indeed, if she can, she should deter the man from this crime by blandishments, prayers, and other testimonies of affection (Sacred Penitentiary, November 15, 1816), even by denial of the debt if she thus hopes to procure the amendment of the husband.

3. But the wife cannot render the debt to an onanist husband employing a preservative instrument, whether he himself puts on a covering or imposes an occlusive covering upon the wife, because it is immediate participation in an intrinsically evil action. For then there is not present copulation of itself apt for generation. Namely, such congress admitted on each side is vitiated from the beginning and intrinsically evil; whence cooperation, even merely passive, is altogether illicit. Therefore the wife is bound positively to resist according to her strength, for example by moving herself or by using her hands, and she cannot yield except to prevailing force, after the manner of an oppressed woman, in which case, from such a most grave cause, as to that which she cannot impede, she can bear herself merely permissively, provided she excludes every consent to pleasure (Sacred Penitentiary, April 16, 1853 and June 3, 1916; Provincial Council of Mechlin, n. 84).

4. Likewise the wife would sin gravely if she induced the man to onanism either directly or indirectly, for example by producing insistent complaints concerning more numerous offspring, concerning the pains of childbirth, concerning the inconveniences of gestation, and so forth.

5. When the wife uses an occlusive pessary or other means impeding generation, the man must by marital authority prohibit it and remove her from these things; indeed, if it can be done, he must take away and destroy the means and instruments. But if nothing profits and grave inconveniences are to be feared, some judge that the man can even seek the debt and perfect copulation, provided he bears himself merely materially and passively as to the impediment of generation. Now:

a. It would certainly be illicit if the wife used a pseudo-vagina, because then from the beginning the act would be intrinsically evil.

b. On the contrary, it is probably licit if, with the husband contradicting, she uses anticonceptional powder or a medicine by which semen is killed, at least if it is done after the act, or if by washing of the female canal she tries to expel it; because then both the act and the genital organ of the woman remain substantially the same. For the act itself is done well and semen is deposited in the due vessel, but the vice is not from the mode of acting, but exists independently from the act and is posterior to it and is to be attributed to the wife alone.

c. But if she uses a sponge or occlusive pessary, whether the same reasoning is valid, we ourselves would not dare to decide, but let the wiser see.⁵ The matter is not so clear, whether in the case the copulation itself is vitiated from the beginning, although from the beginning and during copulation there is present an impediment to conception from occlusion of the uterus; because the mouth of the uterus is not an organ which, like the virile member, has a part in copulation, but copulation is perfected in the due mode if semen is deposited in the natural female genital canal. In the case this happens, although the action of nature to be continued after copulation is impeded, but by the woman. Hence in practice, until the Church pronounces, the husband will be able to be absolved, provided he is prepared to stand by the mandates of the Holy See.

⁵ Father Vermeersch in the first edition of his work affirmed this, but afterwards retracted himself (compare Periodica de re canonica, 1925, f. II; and Th. M., t. IV, 69). The act now seems to him evil from the beginning, because the female genital canal is already substantially vitiated: for this is essentially a canal leading to the uterus; but since in the case it is occluded, it also ceases to be a canal. Hence a woman who has a naturally occluded female genital canal is impotent. The argument, saving better judgment, does not seem certain. For natural occlusion is one thing, merely artificial occlusion another; an organ occluded by reason of its structure is one thing, an organ aptly constructed but occluded because of an accidental impediment placed upon it from outside, which leaves the female genital canal perfectly integral, is another. It is also useful to note that in this mode only the passage of semen into the uterus and thus to the ovum is impeded. Now if the uterus has been removed, or the oviduct interrupted, and passage to the ovum has already been made impossible, nevertheless the conjugal act remains licit; likewise during pregnancy, while passage into the uterus is impeded because it is closed.

Nor does it stand in the way: if it is illicit for the woman to cooperate with the man using a preservative instrument, by equal right it must be illicit for the man to cooperate with the woman who uses a similar instrument. For although the rights are equal, nevertheless the parts of the man and the woman in the conjugal act are not the same, but are greater in the man; and therefore the man will be able more easily to cooperate with the wife than she with the man.

III. Corollaries. 1. From the principles enunciated one can respond to the question whether the wife could cooperate in sodomitical copulation, which is also opposed to the natural end of copulation and to conjugal fidelity demanding that spouses use the body only in a mode apt for generation; for neither has right over the body of the other against nature. Now, one must respond as for artificial onanism: to such copulation, as intrinsically evil and vitiated from the beginning, it is never licit to cooperate positively or actively, nor even merely passively; but it is necessary that the wife try to impede the sodomitical concubitus of the man by resisting positively as much as she can, for example by movement and by hands, and if, unwilling, she nevertheless is compelled to yield to prevailing force, that she never consent to the venereal pleasure perhaps arising from it. For if to cooperate in artificial onanism is never licit, a fortiori this is valid concerning the sodomitical mode, which is more perverse (compare Sacred Penitentiary, April 3, 1916).

2. From onanism and sodomy improperly so called there must be distinguished the act by which spouses come together in the manner of animals, yet in such a way that copulation is done in the female genital canal. In this case some say that they came together backwards or from behind. Then the confessor must ask whether in this mode generation was possible; if they respond that it was possible, it is inferred that the act was not against nature but only inordinate in position, beside nature; this sin does not exceed venial. Of his own accord the confessor should never have speech concerning the position to be had in copulation.

3. From onanism differs altogether the practice of having copulation only in the time of agenesis, during which time conception in no way or more rarely, namely, occurs; whence by this practice generation is made little probable. For such a manner of acting of itself is not sinful, since spouses can contain themselves as long as they wish, and otherwise do nothing against the end of marriage in the time in which they come together (Sacred Penitentiary, June 16, 1889), provided this is done from a right intention or just motive and with due circumstances preserved. Nevertheless, the bishops of Belgium rightly warn: "lest, however, the time of agenesis be proposed to the spouses as if through it generation were certainly avoided."⁶

⁶ The time of agenesis was formerly established by the physician Capellmann and others thus: from ten or fourteen days after the beginning up to three or four days before the new menstruation; for they thought ovulation, and accordingly fertility, to coincide with menstruation, so that during the month the woman would be:

4. Nor must onanism be confused with the interruption of copulation. For this can be licit because of a grave reason, for example to avoid scandal when a person unexpectedly arrives, because of a spasm arisen in the calves, because of a sudden infirmity. Then copulation is broken off not now so that semen may be poured out externally, but for another end, whence the effusion of semen occurring beyond the intention is equated with involuntary pollution. If grave reason is lacking, this, speaking per se, is not mortal, provided the spouses consent in this and there is no danger of inseminating outside the vessel; for that intromission of the female vessel is then judged after the manner of an impudicious touch, which is permitted between spouses or at least is not mortal, with danger of pollution set aside. We have said:

a. if both consent, for if one withdraws without the consent of the other, he or she certainly sins gravely against the obligation of rendering the debt, as will be more evident from the following article;

b. speaking per se, for often it is mortal because the danger is frequently present from such withdrawal of pouring out semen, unless the spouses have experienced the opposite, in which case, nevertheless, ordinarily they cannot be excused from venial sin;

c. if there is no danger of pollution; whence the husband sins gravely who, without just cause, restrains insemination after the wife has experienced complete pleasure or is proximately prepared for it, because thus he is the cause that the action of the wife is deprived of its end and is mere pollution.

5. On the contrary, that cannot be admitted which some have said: that spouses who do not wish to multiply offspring can, for fostering mutual love, calming concupiscence, or compensating for the use of marriage, exercise the beginning of copulation, even through intromission into the female genital canal, in the manner of an imperfect act which they do not wish to bring to consummation; and indeed licitly, even if pollution arises from it not only rarely but even frequently, provided they do not consent to it.

Against this:

a. an imperfect touch, if the primary end, the generation of offspring, is positively excluded, is venial sin, even if there is no danger of pollution from it;

b. but if the act is prolonged for a long time or even frequently repeated, so that there is proximate danger of pollution, it will be gravely evil, because it is to place a cause per se and gravely influencing pollution. And if it were licit, spouses could practice material onanism with impunity; for such a practice is equivalent to onanism, from which it differs by explicit intention alone, since in the formal onanist pollution is voluntary in itself, but here only voluntary in a proximate cause. And therefore each is equally prohibited under grave sin.

6. Women sin gravely in intention who by an inefficacious reason, by a vain remedy, by restraining distillation, by rising to urinate, have wished to render copulation sterile. Nor can they obey a husband ordering such things unless first they have warned him concerning his error.

But if they voluntarily employ a means by which received semen is expelled or killed, they are guilty of an exterior gravely sinful act; hence women regularly ought not irrigate the female genital canal immediately, but only some hours after copulation.⁷

⁷ Father Vermeersch, who in the first edition of his work De Castitate, n. 264, more severely required six hours, recently judges more benignly and holds washing after an hour licit. For "in individual effusions, nemaspermata are contained in an immense number, which they estimate at 250,000,000 to 260,000,000. If the man has perfectly effected intromission into the female genital canal, already in the very act of copulation many nemaspermata enter the uterus. But their motion is such that they traverse a hundredth part of a meter in ten moments. The beginning of the female genital canal is distant from the mouth of the uterus by 2 1/2 to 3 centimeters; but 10 centimeters from the Fallopian tubes ... where fertilization usually occurs.... When all things proceed optimally, fertilization already has place after an hour and a half from copulation done" (Th. M., IV, n. 7). From this he concludes: "Washing of the female canal after an hour from copulation cannot in itself be called illicit, since then it no longer morally impedes generation," for "so many nemaspermata have been received in the uterus that such hope of fertilization has been made as morally no better can be expected" (ad n. 71).

Therefore under no pretext can it be done earlier: of cleanliness, or custom, or influx of blood with itching, or white flux, or inflammation of the female canal, or health; which causes, moreover, are not proportionate. Indeed generally washing of the female canal is rather harmful to health.⁸ Nevertheless washing immediately after copulation would be licit if it were a means here and now necessary for averting infection or a contagious disease, which certainly rarely occurs.

⁸ Thus Dr. Schockaert, "Les dangers de l'avortement et du neo-malthusianisme pour l'organe feminin," in Revue medicale de Louvain, 1932.

IV. Besides the inordination against nature intrinsic to onanism, several other evil consequences also are apt to follow from it, as Tanquerey notes (Supplement to the treatise on Marriage, n. 41-43):

"a. The spouses themselves often suffer many evils from it; for just as children are a common good and common bond by which spouses are joined more firmly and closely, so on the contrary those who lack offspring dissent much more easily and are separated from one another. Nor should it be said that to attain this end one or another child suffices; for the more numerous the offspring, the firmer the union of the spouses. Otherwise, not rarely are onanists punished by the premature death of one or another child whom they had begotten; hence often the parents of an only child are pressed by anxieties and fears lest perhaps this child be taken from the living and the family name be wiped out. Besides, marital copulation which, legitimately performed, is a remedy of concupiscence, does not calm it but inflames it when it is perfected onanistically; especially the woman is not completely delighted and does not rest unless the uterus is irrigated by virile semen tempering her ardor. Hence also physicians cry out with one voice that onanists are subject to many diseases, which arise especially from excitation of the nerves;⁹ for the commotion which concubitus causes is not calmed except by the natural effusion and reception of virile sperm.

⁹ Or even the woman from defective application of the various practices. Compare Eschbach, o. c., p. 573-574; Surbled, t. I, l. 2, ch. 11-12; Dr. Schockaert, in the cited article.

"b. The offspring also not rarely suffers some detriment from the onanism of parents, which the Council of Poitiers (1868) describes thus: it happens very often that that child is educated more indulgently, or at God's command briefly finishes life, or, having become worse with age, deprived of the sweet love and support of brothers and sisters, loving himself, not obeying parents, proud, ungrateful, without affection, afflicts his family with disgrace and grief.

801. Notion. Onanism (or the sin of Onan) is copulation so performed that from the semen poured out generation cannot follow. This crime perpetrated among unmarried persons is a double sin, namely fornication begun and effective, and pollution in effect. Concerning onanism between spouses it will be said in the treatise on Matrimony (2114 ff.).

The special malice of onanism, when it is committed by unmarried persons, is not rarely unknown; because they easily persuade themselves that less evil intervenes there, where scandal is avoided and the honor of the girl is consulted. Therefore let the confessor not press questions if the penitent seems to be in good faith, nor a special reason is present for admonishing him or asking whether the sin was consummated, for example on account of suspicion of attempted abortion.

Note. To onanism is referred, insofar as inducing its danger, inordinate congress, in which, namely, the natural order of lying together is not preserved: for example when the man lies beneath, or approaches backward in the manner of beasts, or from the side, or standing, or sitting, or in another unusual mode. Whether and what kind of sin it is, see n. 2100.

504. • Onanism is copula begun with effusion of semen outside the vessel. This crime committed among the unmarried is a twofold sin, namely fornication begun or affective, and pollution in effect. - Note that the special malice of onanism, when it is committed by the unmarried, is not rarely unknown; because they easily persuade themselves that there is less evil there where scandal is avoided and the honor of the girl is consulted. Therefore the confessor should not press questions if the penitent seems to be in good faith, nor is there present a special motive of inquiring about it, for example suspicion of abortion procured or attempted, of affinity contracted, etc.

1652. - Onanism consists in this, that the man, after copula has been begun, withdraws himself before semination and pours out the seed outside, in order to impede generation. Everyone sees per se that this is to indulge lust and at the same time to be unwilling to assume the burdens of Matrimony.

It takes its name from Onan, the second son of the patriarch Judah, who after the death of his brother Her, according to custom, was compelled to take his widow Thamar, so that he might raise up seed for his brother; but going in to the wife of his brother, he poured out the seed upon the ground, lest children should be born in the name of his brother. And therefore the Lord struck him, because he did a detestable thing.¹

1653. Things to Be Established. - I say I. Voluntary onanism is always a mortal sin, as being against nature; and therefore it can never be licit for spouses. The reason is 1° because it plainly fights against the primary end of Matrimony, and per se tends toward the extinction of society, and consequently subverts the natural order; 2° because it was strictly prohibited by the supreme Legislator and Author of nature, as is drawn out from the text of Genesis just related; 3° moreover, this is established from the 49th proposition condemned by Innocent XI, which sounds thus: Mollities is not prohibited by natural law. ... Hence thus: Onanism is true and properly so-called mollities, or pollution outside the licit use of Matrimony; therefore. This is confirmed by several Decisions of the Sacred Penitentiary and of the Holy Office to be referred to below. - I said: voluntary; because the sin of Onanism is not present if in the conjugal act seed can indeed be received by the woman, but cannot be retained, or if, after the work of marriage has been begun, seed is poured out because of necessity, for example because others come upon them and the work of marriage must be interrupted.²

I say II. An onanist man can never be excused from grave sin, and therefore is never to be absolved unless he sincerely grieves over his sin and proposes to avoid it for the future. The reason is clear from what has been said.

I say III. A wife can be excused from sin if, for a grave cause, she renders the debt to an onanist husband, provided that interiorly she does not assent to his sin, and exteriorly shows her repugnance by serious admonitions or other signs of displeasure. The reason is 1° because she is occupied with a licit thing and uses her own right, of which she cannot be deprived because of the malice of the man; nor does she properly cooperate in the sin of another, since she bears herself only passively, and the intrinsically evil action consists only in the act of the man then withdrawing against the order of nature; 2° because she is not bound by charity to impede the sin of her husband with grave inconvenience to herself; 3° because it is clear from the responses by which the Sacred Penitentiary declared that a woman of this kind is not to be disquieted. - See the Decisions to be referred to below, n. 1658. ad 1um. 1659.

I said: if for a grave cause; and among grave causes Bouvier enumerates a reasonable fear of death, of grave cruelties, quarrels or blows (measuring gravity according to the condition of the person), divorce, infamy or grave scandal; likewise fear lest the husband should keep a concubine or commit adultery, or lest he should utter blasphemies against Religion, injuries against the confessor, or scandalous words before children or servants.

1654. Resolves. - 1° A woman sins gravely who induces the man to abuse Matrimony, even indirectly or tacitly, for example by complaining about the number of offspring, the labors of childbirth or the education of children, or by repeatedly saying that she will die in the next childbirth, etc. A fortiori she sins gravely if, the husband being unwilling, she withdraws herself from copula begun before semination.

2° Likewise, a woman sins gravely by interiorly consenting to the detestable action of the man, even if exteriorly she shows repugnance. For sin is always to be held in hatred. Yet distinguish consent in the very action of the man from joy over the effect thence following, or over immunity from the inconveniences and dangers which accompany generation. Yet that joy is not without danger (see what was said in n. 232). Especially, however, the woman must beware of the manifestation of joy of this kind, lest the onanist man take an occasion from it for sinning in this way.

3° The wife is held, at least ordinarily, to warn an onanist man concerning the obligation of acting rightly, and to turn him away, as much as is in her, from a perverse manner of acting. Nor does it suffice that she has warned him once; but she ought sometimes to repeat admonitions, unless she is certain that a new admonition will profit nothing. Yet even then she ought in some manner to make known her repugnance, lest she seem willingly to consent to the sin of the husband. - Thus commonly, and thus responded the Sacred Penitentiary when interrogated, n. 1659. IV.

4° It will also be the office of the wife to move the husband by caresses, various signs of love, prayers, and exhortations to completing the act rightly, or to abstaining from it altogether. Experience establishes that very many onanist men, thus enticed by their wives, have returned themselves to better fruit.

1655. Questions. - Query 1° In what manner should a confessor conduct himself with spouses confessing, asking, or wholly silent concerning the use of Matrimony?

Resp. See n. 1425. 2). 3). 4); 1657. Resp. Ad 3um; 1658. § Ad 2um autem.

Query 2° Can a wife ask the debt from an onanist man?

Resp. Affirmatively, more probably, from a just cause; because she has a right to copula, and is excused from the sin of cooperation. - But "she will have a just cause of asking, if she herself should be in danger of incontinence, or if otherwise she would have to be deprived of her right of asking more than once or twice, with a perpetual scruple whether it is a sufficiently grave inconvenience to her or not, then to contain herself." Thus St. Alphonsus.¹ So also declared the Major Penitentiary Card. di Pietro in the admonition to the aforesaid responses of the Sacred Penitentiary, although he adds that the Sacred Penitentiary refused to give a decision concerning this matter.

Query 3° Does the wife sin by furnishing internal consent to pleasure, when she can permit the conjugal act to an onanist man?

Resp. Negatively, provided that she does not furnish assent to the sin of the man. The reason is that, since she does not sin in the least by permitting an act of this kind, neither does she sin by admitting the pleasure coming from it, although she foreknows that the man will not perfect copula; for that act is in itself honorable and licit for the woman, and it does not stand through her that it is not perfected in the due mode.

Query 4° Do spouses sin gravely who, in order to avoid offspring, have copula only at that time in which conception is not accustomed to have place, e.g., in that space of time which runs from about a fortnight after menses up to the next term of these?

Resp. The following doubts were proposed to the Sacred Penitentiary concerning this matter, which, from the French idiom into Latin to the letter, as much as I could, I have translated.

I. 1° Can this manner of acting be excused from mortal sin? - 2° Is it prohibited at least under venial sin by reason of the intention of not conceiving?

II. Is it lawful for a confessor to counsel this manner of acting: 1° to a wife who, although she detests and reproves the onanism of her husband, nevertheless tries in vain to turn him away from it? 2° To both spouses, who, lest they be burdened by a numerous family, voluntarily give themselves to onanism?

III. 1° Can this manner of acting be counseled without danger, by which the diminution of the family is caused more certainly than by onanism, since the very reason of honesty reproves this latter? - 2° Is that danger compensated, if thus mortal sin is avoided and the conscience of very many wives is pacified, who otherwise, whether by fault of the husband or by fear lest they conceive, will be alienated from the Sacraments?

To these doubts "the Sacred Penitentiary, the things set forth having been diligently weighed, responds: Spouses using Matrimony in the aforesaid manner are not to be disquieted, and the confessor can, cautiously however, insinuate the sentence of which there is question to those spouses whom he has vainly attempted to draw away from the detestable crime of onanism by another reason." Rome, in the Sacred Penitentiary, June 16, 1880.

A. Card. Bilio, P. M.
Hip. Can. Palombi, S. P. Secretarius.
L. + S.

Yet note that the spouses of whom there is question in the Query can be in a bad state: a) because of the danger of incontinence, which within the fortnight that immediately follows the menses can be present for at least one of the spouses, and which will more easily be present for those inclined toward venery, especially if they do not greatly abhor sin; b) because of the danger of refusing the debt in the case in which the consort should ask it within that fortnight, and this danger will be the greater the more solicitous the party from whom it is asked is to avoid offspring.¹

Query 5° In what manner must one proceed with a wife who is placed in a proximate occasion of sin because of a man abusing Matrimony in any way?

To be noted beforehand. - The case would be if, the husband exacting it, she herself directly pollutes him with her hands, or if she herself is accustomed truly to consent to onanism, sodomy, her own pollution, etc.

Berardi responds:¹ "In this case the confessor will employ every zeal, that he may turn away the miserable woman from such horrible sins. Women ordinarily are accustomed to have the greatest affection for sins of this kind, and very difficultly are they accustomed to be induced to elicit a firm purpose of ceasing from them, because, by committing the aforesaid sins, on the one hand they satisfy pleasures both their own and the husband's, and on the other hand they free themselves from numerous offspring and from the inconveniences of gestation, childbirth, lactation, etc. Hence it is necessary that the confessor have ready an efficacious admonition and very grave words, that he may deter them from so great a crime.

"But if the admonitions of the confessor produce no or little amendment, it will not rarely be useful to threaten delay of absolution, and even in fact to defer the same."

Query 6° Can the wife of whom there is question in the case be obliged to make a divorce, so that she may be freed from this occasion of sinning with her own husband?

The same Berardi responds,² distinguishing: "If the woman in the use of Matrimony commits mortal sins, without the husband tempting her to committing these same sins, then she has no right of making a divorce, and therefore she must use other means for removing the danger of sinning in this occasion, which must be judged as altogether necessary. But if the husband himself compels her, or tempts her to committing the same sins, then Canonists and Theologians very commonly teach that the woman has the right of making a divorce; whence they argue that she even ought to make the same divorce if, because of cohabitation, she is placed in grave danger of sinning. See St. Alphonsus,³ Sanchez,⁴ the Salmanticenses, etc. But this conclusion must be understood with a grain of salt: namely, inasmuch as the woman indeed ought to make a divorce if she can without grave difficulty; but not if she would have to undergo grave harms and grave difficulties; because then there would be question of a necessary occasion, as Hurtado⁵ and St. Alphonsus note."⁶

1656. - I Consultation. "The Bishop N. most humbly supplicates for the solution of this doubt: 1° whether a woman can be absolved who indeed would suffer the husband, if he acted rightly in conjugal copula, but vehemently desires that the man withdraw himself because that woman fears to have offspring. 2° Whether a woman can be absolved who in conjugal copula could by her caresses obtain from the man that he would not withdraw himself, and does not do it; because that copula displeases her."

Response. - "The Sacred Penitentiary, having weighed the doubts proposed by the Venerable Father in Christ, Bishop N., responded: Negatively. Given at Rome, in the Sacred Penitentiary, on the 27th day of May, 1847."

1657. - II Consultation. "It is asked of the Apostolic See with what theological note the three following propositions are worthy, namely: 1° for honest reasons it is licit for spouses to use Matrimony in that manner in which Onan used it. 2° It is probable that that use of Matrimony is not prohibited by natural law. 3° It is never expedient to interrogate spouses of either sex concerning this matter, even if it is prudently feared lest the spouses, whether the man or the wife, abuse Matrimony."

Response. - "Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition, on the 21st day of May, 1851. To the 1st. That the proposition is scandalous, erroneous, and contrary to the natural right of Matrimony. - To the 2nd. That the proposition is scandalous, erroneous, and otherwise implicitly condemned by Innocent XI in the 49th proposition" (p. XVII). - "To the 3rd. That the proposition, as it lies, is false, too lax, and dangerous in practice."

1658. - III Consultation. Petition of the Most Illustrious Lord Bouvier, Bishop of Le Mans, concerning the manner of acting of confessors with spouses, relatively to Onanism.

"Most Blessed Father, the Bishop of Le Mans in France, prostrate at the feet of Your Holiness with the greatest reverence, most humbly represents the things which follow.

"Nearly all younger spouses do not wish to have a more numerous offspring, and yet morally they cannot abstain from the conjugal act.

"Being interrogated by the confessor concerning the manner in which they use the rights of Matrimony, more commonly they are accustomed to be gravely offended; and, when admonished, they neither abstain from the conjugal act, nor can they be determined toward the excessive multiplication of offspring.

"Then, murmuring against confessors, they forsake the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist; they give a bad example to children, servants, and other faithful of Christ; a lamentable detriment to Religion arises thence.

"The number of those who approach the Sacred Tribunal of Penance in many places decreases from year to year, especially on account of this cause, as most pastors more conspicuous in piety, knowledge, and experience confess.

"How then did confessors formerly act? many say. No more children were commonly born then than today from individual Matrimonies, spouses were not more chaste, and nevertheless they did not fail in the precepts of annual Confession and Paschal Communion.

"All readily admit that infidelity toward the consort, and the attempt at abortion, is a very great sin. But scarcely, and indeed not even scarcely, can they be persuaded that they are held under mortal sin either to preserve perfect chastity in Matrimony, or to incur the danger of generating innumerable offspring.

"The aforesaid Bishop of Le Mans, foreseeing that immense evils will thence come, and troubled with anxiety, solicitously asks of Your Beatitude:

"1° Whether spouses who use Matrimony in such a manner that they guard against conception exercise an act per se morally evil?

"2° If the act is to be held as morally evil, whether spouses not accusing themselves of it can be considered as constituted in that good faith which excuses them from grave fault?

"3° Whether the manner of acting of confessors is to be approved who, lest they offend married persons, do not interrogate them concerning the manner in which they use the rights of Matrimony?"

Response. - "The Sacred Penitentiary, having maturely weighed the proposed questions, to the 1st responds: Since the whole disorder of the act proceeds from the malice of the man, who, instead of consummating, withdraws himself and pours out outside the vessel; therefore, if the woman, after due admonitions, profits nothing, but the man insists, threatening blows or death, she herself, as approved Theologians teach, can simply permit it without sin, and this from a grave cause which excuses her; since charity, by which she is held to impede that, does not oblige with so great an inconvenience.

"But to the 2nd and 3rd it responds: That the aforesaid confessor recall to mind that adage, holy things are to be treated in a holy manner; and also weigh the words of St. Alphonsus de Ligorio, a learned man and most experienced in these matters, who in the Praxis Confessariorum § 4. n. 41 says: 'But concerning the sins of spouses with respect to the conjugal debt, ordinarily speaking, the confessor is not held, nor is it becoming, to interrogate, except wives, whether they have rendered it, in the more modest manner in which he can. ... Concerning other things let him be silent, unless he has been interrogated.' Nor should he omit to consult other approved authors. Given at Rome by the Sacred Penitentiary on the 8th day of June, 1842."

1659. - IV Consultation. Question. "Bertha has a man, whom by constant experience she knows to be an onanist. In vain has she attempted every means to draw him back from so nefarious a crime. Indeed very grave or at least grave evils now probably threaten her, so that she must either incur these evils or flee from the house of the husband, unless she permits at least sometimes the abuse of Matrimony, etc."

Response. - "Since in the proposed case the woman on her part indeed does nothing against nature, and gives work to a licit thing, but the whole disorder of the act proceeds from the malice of the man, who, instead of consummating, withdraws himself and pours out outside the vessel; and therefore, if the woman, after due admonitions, profits nothing, but the man insists, threatening blows or death or other very grave evils, she herself (as approved Theologians teach) can bear herself permissively without sin; since in these circumstances of things she simply permits the sin of her husband, and this from a grave cause which excuses her; because charity, by which she is held to impede that, does not oblige with so great an inconvenience. Given at Rome in the Sacred Penitentiary on the 1st day of February, 1823."

V. Response of the Major Penitentiary. "Approved and exact moral Theologians agree in this, that ... it is lawful for a wife to render the debt, if from her denial she would be badly treated by her husband, and could fear grave inconvenience to herself thence; for, they say, in this case the wife is not judged formally to cooperate in the sin of her husband, but only to permit it from a just and reasonable cause. Yet let the Orator admonish a wife of this kind, that she not cease prudently to warn her husband, so that he desist from this turpitude.

"Michael, Card. di Pietro,
Major Penitentiary.

"Given at Rome in the Sacred Penitentiary, on the 19th day of November, 1816.

"There exist also other responses of the Sacred Penitentiary, which are wholly consonant with the preceding; Gousset reports these in the work, Justification de Saint Liguori."¹

I. For asking a dispensation in a public impediment, concerning which, according to the faculties (p. LXX. sq.), the Bishop can dispense.

"Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord."

"John N." (the family name is put) "and Anna N. ... of the parish (mission) N. ... of this diocese N." ... (if the persons about to marry belong to different dioceses, this is more correctly² expressed, and indeed immediately after the family name of each. Moreover, the dispensation is more conveniently petitioned through the pastor of the bride, if the impediment is common to both contracting parties, as, e.g., the impediment of kinship) "being blood-relatives in the fourth degree equally in the transverse line, as appears from the appended chart" (see an example of this, n. 1583. q. 2°. p. 252) "they desire to enter Matrimony with each other" (the impediment of blood-relationship is set forth here; but, as is clear, in this place that very impediment by which the persons about to marry are bound is to be set forth), "and therefore they suppliantly beg from Your Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lordship the dispensation necessary for themselves. - The reasons are" ... (Here are set forth the causes which exist for obtaining the dispensation, e.g. 1° the age of the girl, who, having now completed 25 years, probably would not find another man whom she could conveniently marry; 2° e.g. danger of heresy, since the Orators live in a place mixed with non-Catholics, etc.). There follow, if any are present, the circumstances which must necessarily be expressed.

"With the greatest reverence and devotion with which it is proper, I remain,

"Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord,

"Of Your Most Illustrious Lordship,

"Most submissive,

"N. N.,

"Pastor or Missionary Priest.

"Baltimore, day ... Dec. 1874."

Note. - On the back of the sheet, or below the text of the supplicatory petition, let the chart of blood-relationship or affinity be put.

II. For asking a dispensation in an occult impediment, concerning which, according to the faculties or by law, the Bishop can dispense, and whose dispensation can be asked from him without danger of injuring the seal.

"Most Illustrious," etc., as above I.

"Titius and Caja, while the first spouse of Titius was still living, knew each other carnally, and gave faith mutually to each other concerning Matrimony to be contracted between themselves if the wife of Titius should die before him; she now being dead, however, neither of the Orators having plotted against her death, they desire to contract Matrimony between themselves. But since the impediment of crime arising from adultery and promise is occult, and unless Matrimony is contracted between them there threatens danger of scandals or of perseverance in sin, therefore, to avoid these things, and for the quiet of their conscience, they most humbly supplicate that Your Most Illustrious Lordship may deign most graciously to impart to them the grace of dispensation."

"With the greatest," etc., as I.

III. For asking a dispensation from the Bishop, after Matrimony has already been contracted in good faith with an impediment in itself public, and concerning which, by force of the faculties, the Bishop can dispense.

"Most Illustrious," etc.

"It is humbly set forth to Your Most Illustrious Lordship on the part of the devout Orators John N. ... and Anna N. (see above I.) of the parish (mission) ... of this diocese" ... (see above I.), "that they, otherwise ignorant that some impediment existed between them by which they could not be joined matrimonially to each other, contracted Matrimony between themselves by words of the present, public proclamations having been made in their parochial church, and no impediment having been detected or denounced, and solemnized it in the face of the Church, and consummated it by carnal copula. But afterward it came to their knowledge that they (as appears from the appended chart), proceeding in the third and fourth degrees of blood-relationship from a common stock, are joined to each other, on account of which they abstained from carnal copula" (or "and nevertheless persevered in the same carnal copula"). "But since the aforesaid Orators cannot remain in this Matrimony of this kind without dispensation, and, if separation were made between them, grave scandals could thence arise, they supplicate that, the pardon of ecclesiastical law being most graciously given to them, they may be able to enter Matrimony in the face of the Church, and afterward live in it freely and licitly."

"With the greatest," etc., as above.

IV. For asking a dispensation from the Bishop, after Matrimony has already been contracted in bad faith with a public impediment.

"Most Illustrious," etc.

"It is humbly set forth to Your Most Illustrious Lordship, in the name of the Orators John N. and Anna N., of the parish N. of this diocese N., that they, otherwise knowing that they (as appears from the appended chart), in the second degree of blood-relationship proceeding equally from a common stock, are joined to each other, petitioned a dispensation from Your Most Illustrious Lordship" (or "from the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord N.") "for validly contracting Matrimony between themselves, the said impediment notwithstanding; but, having suffered refusal, blinded by mad passion and circumvented by diabolical fraud, they contracted an incestuous Matrimony before the civil magistrate" (or "a heretical preacher") "and consummated it, from which already three children have in the meantime been received by them. But now, from the superabundant mercy of God, greatly fearing concerning the danger of eternal salvation, they have been moved with great sorrow on account of their past life. But since, if separation were made between them, grave scandals would thence arise, and also great harm would come forth for their children; yet in Matrimony they cannot remain without dispensation, they supplicate that Your Most Illustrious Lordship may deign to dispense with them, so that, in the face of the Church, but with public denunciations omitted, they may contract Matrimony with one another, consent having been renewed, and may remain in it freely and licitly; this motive also being added on the part of the undersigned, that unless the dispensation is granted, it is greatly to be feared lest the Orators be entirely perverted in the Faith, and fall away from it, together with the children received, since they live among non-Catholics and infidels."

"With the greatest," etc.

V. For asking a dispensation from the Bishop in an occult impediment, and indeed with sanation of the Matrimony in the root.

"Most Illustrious," etc.

"Sempronia, of the diocese N. N., ignorant of the impediment, in the face of the Church and with denunciations having preceded, contracted Matrimony in good faith with a man by whose brother" (or "son") "she had previously been known carnally. Wherefore, since they cannot be separated without scandal, and danger of incontinence or of grave defamation is present, the putative husband being plainly ignorant of the impediment, and therefore the matrimonial consent cannot be renewed without grave danger of quarrels, hence she humbly supplicates for a speedy remedy of dispensation concerning an impediment of this kind, entirely occult, and indeed in the root of the Matrimony, so that, without renewal of consent, the Matrimony can be healed."

"With the greatest," etc.

VI. For asking a dispensation in a public impediment concerning which the Bishop cannot dispense.

Let Formula I be taken; but:

1° In place of: "Most Illustrious," etc., let this be written: "Most Blessed Father."

2° In place of: "from the Most Illustrious," etc., write: "from Your Holiness."

3° In place of: "With the greatest," etc., write:

"If Your Holiness deigns benignly to grant this grace to the Orators, they will render the greatest thanks for it with the greatest reverence and devotion with which it is proper,"

"To Your Holiness,

"Most submissive,

"N. N., etc.

"Given at N. N."

Note. - 1° If they are poor, after the reasons have been set forth it is said: "They are poor and miserable, and live only from their labor and industry." See n. 1627.

2° Let the supplication prepared by the Pastor of the Orators be sent to the Bishop; but the Bishop, or in his place the Vicar General, sends it to Rome fortified with testimony, seal, and episcopal handwriting.

3° If a dispensation is to be asked from the Holy See in a Matrimony contracted with a public impediment, whether in good or in bad faith, let Formula III or IV be taken, with the things changed which must be changed according to those things which were changed in this Formula VI.

VII. For asking a dispensation from the Sacred Penitentiary in Matrimony to be contracted.

"Most Eminent Prince."

"It is most humbly set forth to Your Eminence, on the part of the Orators Titius and Caja, that they intend to contract Matrimony, but that Titius, a married man, carnally knew Caja by perfect copula while his own wife Sempronia was still living, and they gave faith mutually to each other concerning Matrimony to be contracted between themselves if Sempronia, the wife of Titius, should die before him; and she indeed died before him by poison administered by Titius. But since from the premises the impediment of crime has arisen, and thence they can contract Matrimony neither licitly nor validly, the Orators supplicate for the grace of dispensation concerning this impediment of crime, so that they may publicly contract Matrimony between themselves, and afterward remain in it licitly and freely, and the offspring may be decreed legitimate. The impediment is altogether occult, and the danger of perseverance in sin is pressing, indeed also of grave scandal, if they cannot be joined in lawful Matrimony. Wherefore, for the quiet of their conscience, grieving greatly over the premises, they humbly supplicate Your Eminence, that concerning these things you may deign to provide by Apostolic authority with an opportune remedy.

"Kissing the purple, with the greatest," etc., as I.

"May Your Eminence deign to direct the response to New York (n. 173 Third Street, New York, U.S. of America) to me, the undersigned."

On the outside let him form the inscription thus: "To the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lord, Lord N., Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, Major Penitentiary" (from our Provinces: "Prefect of the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide"), "Rome."

VIII. For asking a dispensation from the Sacred Penitentiary in Matrimony already contracted.

"Most Eminent Prince."

"Titius, a married man, carnally knew Caja by perfect copula while his own wife Sempronia was still living, and they gave faith mutually to each other concerning Matrimony to be contracted between themselves if Sempronia, the wife of Titius, should die before him; and, after Sempronia had died before him by poison administered by Titius, aware" (or "ignorant" [or "Titius aware" or "ignorant" or "Caja aware" or "ignorant"]) "of the impediment, in the face of the Church, with proclamations having preceded" (or "having been dispensed") "they contracted Matrimony" (or "with no proclamations having preceded, before the civil Magistrate," or "a heretical preacher") "and consummated it by carnal copula." (If each party or one or the other party still perseveres in good faith, let this be expressed; likewise whether each party or one or the other party, aware of the impediment, now abstains from copula, or nevertheless has persevered in the same.) "Wherefore, since the impediment is altogether occult, and separation cannot be made without scandal, I most humbly ask Your Eminence that you benignly indulge dispensation for them, inasmuch as they may be able to contract validly.

"Kissing the purple," etc., as Form VII.

Note. - The formulae by which the Bishop grants dispensations, Prelates will find in Heiss, de Matrim. p. 406 sq.

1. Formula of supplication for dispensation concerning the banns.

"Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord."

"It is humbly set forth that" (the names and surnames of the Orators are written, as above Form I., if the cause is honest or public; fictitious names, if the cause is occult and dishonorable; then the cause itself or causes). "Wherefore the Orators, whom, after diligent inquiry, I have found bound by no impediment, earnestly ask that a dispensation be granted to them concerning two (three) proclamations.

"Commending the prayers I remain," etc.

2. Formula of supplication for dispensation concerning the impediment of mixed religion.

"Most Illustrious," etc.

"Constantia N., Catholic, my parishioner, desires to enter Matrimony with Frederick N. from N., attached to the sect ..." (or "a baptized non-Catholic").

"The non-Catholic party before me, as appears from the declaration annexed to this supplication, promised under the faith of an oath that all infants of either sex to be born from that Matrimony are to be baptized and educated in the Catholic Faith, and that to them, equally as to the consort, the exercise of the Catholic Religion will be entirely free. Moreover, the Catholic party promised that she would take care according to her strength that, as much as is in her, the man be converted to the true Faith. Wherefore she most humbly supplicates Your Most Illustrious Lordship that you deign to grant to her by Apostolic authority a dispensation concerning that impediment. The causes are" (the cause or causes are set forth, e.g. vain attempts that the Oratrix renounce such a Matrimony; founded hope of the conversion of the non-Catholic party, etc.).

699. Notion. Onanism is distinguished as twofold: solitary and conjugal. Solitary onanism (so called chiefly by modern physicians) is nothing other than mollities, or pollution.⁴⁰⁶ We do not treat of it here. Conjugal onanism, however (so called from the sin of Onan described in Genesis 38:9), is customarily perpetrated in two ways: a) by interruption of intercourse or complete withdrawal before ejaculation, so that the semen is poured out outside its due place;⁴⁰⁷ it is called interrupted or preventive intercourse; b) by diverse instruments and means invented by human malice, which are employed either on the part of the man or on the part of the woman for the purpose that the semen be prevented from reaching its due place;⁴⁰⁸ it is called preservative intercourse. Onanism performed in the first manner is sometimes called onanism strictly so called; but that performed in the second manner is said to be onanism broadly so called. Each kind of onanism, however, is not rarely called "neomalthusianism."⁴⁰⁹

⁴⁰⁶ Cf. above, II, n. 705.

⁴⁰⁷ To break off intercourse after it has begun, if semen is not emitted, is not onanism; and therefore, although spouses are to be exhorted to abstain from a thing of this kind because of the danger of pollution, if they nevertheless assert that pollution follows only rarely, it cannot be forbidden to them under pain of grave sin. Cf. Noldin, loc. cit., n. 67.

⁴⁰⁸ Such instruments and means are diverse, for example, pessarium (pessary), praeservativs (preventives), condoms, capote anglaise ("English hood"), rubber goods, Frauenschutz ("women's protection"), Fischblasen ("fish bladders"), and so forth. Vaginal washings are also often employed by women after intercourse to guard more or less against conception. These washings indeed are not accustomed to render conception totally impossible, as do the instruments just indicated. For already in intercourse itself the male semen is accustomed sufficiently to enter the uterus, nor can it thereafter be washed out by a vaginal washing. Nevertheless, this manner of acting is evil if the sole end intended is the prevention of conception; the matter is otherwise if bodily cleanliness or some other honorable end is intended and the washing is not performed immediately after intercourse.

⁴⁰⁹ In the work Essay on the Principle of Population (London, 1798), Malthus contended for the diminution of the human race (to be obtained by means lawful in themselves). The neomalthusians, however, advocate the limitation of generation even by illicit means.

700. Malice. Conjugal onanism, in whatever manner it is freely performed, is always a mortal sin.

Thus right reason teaches; thus the Church has declared. Right reason dictates that onanism is true pollution and directly conflicts both with the good of offspring and with the good of fidelity. For the Creator has prescribed a determinate use for each thing and for each human power. If man acts contrary to that prescribed manner, he acts contrary to the will of God and therefore sins more or less according to the greater or lesser gravity of the matter. Thus, for example, animals according to the intention of the Creator ought to serve man; if he abuses animals by unreasonably tormenting or torturing them, he commits a venial sin, since that abuse is not so grave. Food and drink ought to serve for the nourishment of man; if man abuses food and drink, for example, by trampling bread underfoot, he sins venially. Similarly, the generative faculty was given to man so that he may use it according to the intention of the Creator, that is, for fitting generation. If man abuses this faculty, he sins, and indeed gravely, since that abuse is very grave. The Angelic Doctor writes to the point:⁴¹⁰ "It is evident that every emission of semen in such a manner that generation cannot follow is against the good of man; and if this is done from intention, it must be a sin. I say, however, a manner from which generation cannot follow of itself, as every emission of semen without the natural commingling of male and female: for which reason sins of this kind are said to be against nature. But if generation cannot follow from the emission of semen accidentally, it is not on this account against nature or a sin, as if it should happen that a woman is sterile.... Nor, nevertheless, ought it to be reckoned a venial sin if someone procures the emission of semen outside the due end of generation and education, on account of the fact that it is either a venial sin or no sin if someone uses some part of his body for another use than that to which it is ordered according to nature, as if someone, for example, walks upon his hands or works with his feet at something to be worked with the hands; because through disordered uses of this kind the good of man is not much impeded. But the disordered emission of semen conflicts with the good of nature, which is the conservation of the species. Hence, after the sin of homicide, by which human nature already existing in act is destroyed, this kind of sin seems to hold the second place, by which the generation of human nature is impeded."

The malice of onanism can moreover be perceived from its evil effects. For the bodily health of each spouse is accustomed to be gravely harmed by it, offspring is not generated, families and states are depopulated, and the reins are loosened to lust of every kind.⁴¹¹

Finally, the malice of onanism is evident from declarations of the Church. Thus, on May 21, 1851, the Holy Office declared the proposition, "For honorable reasons spouses may lawfully use matrimony in the manner in which Onan used it," to be "scandalous, erroneous, and contrary to the natural right of matrimony." - To the question, however, "Whether the imperfect use of matrimony, whether performed onanistically or condomistically, as in the case, is licit?" it responded on April 19, 1853: "Negatively, for it is intrinsically evil." - The Sacred Penitentiary responded on November 13, 1901: "A penitent who is unwilling to abstain from a manner of acting of this kind, which is onanism pure and simple, cannot be absolved."

⁴¹⁰ St. Thomas, Contra Gent., l. 3, c. 122.

⁴¹¹ Georges Surbled writes in the very well-known book La morale dans ses rapports avec la médecine et l'hygiène (I, 182): "Unfortunately no one can deny the extreme frequency of onanism, which makes it a veritable social scourge, the mark of the shameful blight of modern marriage. This sad habit is known among all ranks of society in the cities and is already beginning to spread in the most remote countryside.... The dire balance sheet of onanism from the purely medical point of view has not yet been entirely established, but one day it will be known: it is formidable." - All physicians agree with Surbled. Thus, for example, Löwenfeld writes (Die psych. Zwangserscheinungen, 467): "According to Freud, interrupted intercourse figures chiefly among the causes of anxiety neuroses." Cf. also Familler, Pastorale Psychiatrie, p. 37.

701. Principles: 1. A spouse is not bound to render the conjugal debt to an onanistic consort.

The reason is that spouses indeed grant one another a right over the body, but only in order to generation. Now the onanistic spouse not only does not intend generation, but entirely excludes it. Therefore that spouse's right is in no way violated if the use of matrimony, or rather its abuse, is denied by the other party. Thus holds the more common opinion.⁴¹²

2. Formal cooperation in onanism is never licit.

For it is never lawful to cooperate formally in the sin of another. Hence a wife sins gravely not only if by common consent with her husband she perpetrates onanism, but also if by continual complaints about the state of pregnancy, the pains of childbirth, numerous offspring, and so forth, she gives occasion for the husband to complete intercourse in an onanistic manner.

3. Material cooperation in onanism is licit, provided that a proportionately grave cause is present.

Thus holds the opinion today common and true, confirmed by a Response of the Sacred Penitentiary of April 3, 1916.⁴¹³ The reason, however, is that the action performed by the spouse cooperating materially is not intrinsically evil, but honorable or at least indifferent. For by virtue of matrimony a spouse can licitly effect the union of members with the consort. Such an action is honorable. But that the consort abuses this union is per accidens and is imputed to that consort alone. Just as, by parity, an innkeeper has the right to serve wine, even though he certainly foresees the abuse of the wine for causing drunkenness; just as it is lawful to rent a house to a prostitute, even though someone certainly knows that the prostitute will abuse the house for fornications;⁴¹⁴ so a spouse can cooperate materially in onanistic intercourse, provided that a proportionately grave cause is present. Proportionately grave and sufficient causes for a spouse to be able to cooperate materially in onanistic intercourse are, for example, a well-founded fear of quarrels, fights, adultery otherwise to be committed by the husband, and so forth.⁴¹⁵

⁴¹² Cf. Noldin, loc. cit., n. 90; Göpfert, Moraltheol. III, 287. St. Alphonsus (Theol. mor., l. 6, n. 947) thinks the opposite opinion more probable.

⁴¹³ In Marc-Raus, Inst. mor.¹⁰ II, 2117.

⁴¹⁴ Cf. above, II, n. 619 ff.

⁴¹⁵ Cf. Noldin, loc. cit., n. 68.

702. When a spouse uses the instruments enumerated above for preventing conception, theologians most commonly teach that the other spouse is bound according to his or her powers to resist this manner of acting as intrinsically evil and evil from the beginning, and indeed on every occasion, and that merely passive resistance does not suffice.⁴¹⁶

In order that material cooperation in onanism (strictly so called) may be free from fault, not only is 1. a proportionately grave cause required, but in addition it is necessary 2. that the spouse conduct himself or herself passively, 3. that the spouse endeavor to turn the consort away from the latter's most evil manner of acting, and 4. that interior complacency in the sinful act be restrained. Hence sometimes (although not on every occasion) a spouse is bound to admonish the consort to abstain from the conjugal act, or, if the consort is unwilling to do this, to complete it in the natural manner.

Since from a proportionate cause it is lawful to cooperate materially in onanistic intercourse, the innocent spouse can not only render but also request the conjugal debt. For a prolonged privation of the right of requesting the debt, which is accustomed to induce danger of incontinence, is a proportionately grave cause. Thus holds the common opinion.⁴¹⁷

⁴¹⁶ Cf. Response of the Sacred Penitentiary of June 3, 1916, in Marc-Raus, Inst. mor.¹⁰ II, 2117: "1. Whether a woman, in the case in which the man wishes to use an instrument for practicing onanism, is bound to positive resistance? 2. Whether, so that this entire matter may be expounded and taught upon a safer path, a man using such instruments ought truly to be equated with an oppressor, to whom therefore the woman ought to oppose that resistance which a virgin ought to oppose to an oppressor? R. Affirmatively to both." This response, however, has not yet been authentically published.

⁴¹⁷ Cf. St. Alphonsus, loc. cit., l. 6, n. 947; Marc, loc. cit., n. 2116.

703. The only truly efficacious means against onanism are either virtuous continence or firm confidence in God. Certainly it happens that the generation of offspring is morally almost impossible for spouses, for example, if numerous offspring are already present and sufficient means are lacking; if the health of either spouse is weak, or indeed is seriously endangered by a new generation. In these or similar cases, spouses, relying upon divine assistance, ought either to preserve continence by mutual consent or to give themselves to the conjugal act, placing their hope in God, who will certainly give sufficient graces for bearing all the burdens of the conjugal state.

Many physical means for preventing conception are circulated, but all are either illicit or not certainly efficacious.

The physician Capellmann recommends a certain means which indeed is not entirely efficacious, but sometimes produces good effects. Namely, spouses ought to abstain from intercourse during the first fifteen days after menstruation and again during the four days before a new menstruation. At another time, which is called the time of agenesis, they can complete intercourse without there being a great probability of conception. The Sacred Penitentiary declared concerning this matter on June 16, 1880: "Spouses using matrimony in the aforesaid manner are not to be disturbed, and a confessor can cautiously suggest this opinion to those spouses whom he has tried in vain by another means to draw away from the detestable crime of onanism."

704. Conjugal onanism has become so widespread in our times and can be eradicated with such difficulty that it has become both a true cross for confessors and an imminent danger to the common good of the republic. On March 10, 1886, the Sacred Penitentiary established that a confessor who learns, whether from a spontaneous confession or from prudent questioning, that a penitent practices onanism is bound to admonish the penitent concerning the gravity of this sin just as concerning that of other mortal sins, to reprove the penitent with paternal charity, and to impart absolution only when it is established by sufficient signs that the penitent is sorry for the past and has a purpose of no longer acting onanistically. Therefore confessors act badly who never question spouses concerning the sin of onanism. For good faith concerning the liceity of onanism persevering for a long time can be admitted only with difficulty.

The confessor ought to act more severely with an onanistic husband, because the husband can almost always avoid onanism. For wives are accustomed rather willingly to consent to total or partial continence; and therefore, if the husband were willing to preserve the same continence, onanism would cease by that very fact.

The confessor can sometimes be more indulgent with a wife cooperating in onanism, but he is also bound to admonish her not to furnish consent in any manner to the husband's sin. The executing cause of onanism is indeed almost always the husband; but the impelling cause is not rarely the wife, who by night and by day raises complaints concerning the troubles of pregnancy, childbirth, education, and so forth, and thus induces the husband to onanistic intercourse. Hence let the confessor not always believe women who say that they contributed nothing toward the perpetration of onanism. On the other hand, women who accuse themselves of complacency perceived in onanistic intercourse are not immediately to be charged with mortal sin. For not rarely women by no means rejoice in the evil act, but in the good effects thence following, namely, in the pleasure of intercourse, in preservation from the troubles of pregnancy, and so forth. Now such joy is not something intrinsically evil, although it is dangerous. - Conscientious physicians can also furnish the best assistance in the struggle against onanism if they do not exaggerate the dangers of childbirth to spouses and instead openly explain the harms which onanism causes to the health of the spouses.

Note. In the entire matter of the chastity of spouses, let the confessor always keep before his eyes the principle stated above: Nothing is a mortal sin of lust between spouses unless it gravely injures one of the two goods of matrimony, namely, either the good of fidelity or the good of offspring. Ballerini writes most excellently concerning this matter:⁴¹⁸ "Among these or those authors you will find now these acts, now others, denounced as gravely culpable; but indeed in these you have merely certain particular opinions, and those deduced almost not from solid and certain principles, but rather from fanciful apprehensions. They resort, namely, to the reason of indecency and turpitude and, conducting the matter almost by exclamations, proclaim the thing horrible, unspeakable, most shameful, and so forth; as though either the character of sin in general or the gravity of fault were to be sought from the character of indecency in that kind of matter in which even those things which are most licit, indeed commanded, by the leading of nature itself ought to be committed in secret and darkness by reason of indecency. Others resort to the character of unbridled lust; as though lust does not show itself most unbridled in that in which the end of matrimony is consummated; or as though matrimony had not also been instituted so that it might be a remedy for unbridled lust; or as though matrimony could be a remedy for lust in any other way than that the appetite for vehement pleasure is satisfied, with only that law ultimately placed upon it, which St. Thomas also intimates, that it neither run forth outside legitimate matrimony nor oppose the end of nature! - And certainly, unless sin is committed against one or the other of these, nowhere does there clearly appear a solid reason on account of which some other disorder can certainly be charged with grave sin; with this principle established, as is fitting, a most ready method is available to the confessor, both that he may provide for the sanctity of the sacrament and that he may provide for the salvation of penitents."

⁴¹⁸ In the notes to Gury II, 919.

S. Th., II-II, q. 154, a. 11-12.

954. Excess or abuse in the use of marriage can be:

a) by reason of the end, as if it is done exclusively for delight;

b) by reason of an undue circumstance, for example position, if the act is done in another mode besides that which nature indicates;

c) especially by reason of a mode contrary to nature, if it is done in such a way that generation itself is thereby impeded, for example in a sodomitical mode, in an unnatural vessel and an undue organ, namely, in the posterior vessel or in the mouth.

Now the mode of sinning by excess contrary to nature which in present times is very frequent is Onanism, so called from the deed of Onan narrated in Gen. XXXVIII, 9.

1. That practice is often called Neo-Malthusianism. On account of economic reasons Malthus (1798) had proposed the limitation of conception, but by licit means, namely, by abstaining from the conjugal act. Now, however, Neo-Malthusians promote illicit means.

It is vaginal copula sought in that mode by which generation is positively impeded and cannot follow from the effusion of seed; whether because the man withdraws himself before the sowing of seed and pours forth the seed outside the vagina, or because he himself or the woman employs an instrument or other means by which the seed is impeded from passing to the uterus.

It can be done in various modes:

1° On the part of the man: a) if he begins copula in the vagina but withdraws himself before the sowing of seed and pours forth the seed outside the vagina; b) if he clothes the virile member or only its glans with some thin covering or cloak (condom, capote anglaise) within which the seed is retained.

1. It is so called because it had Doctor Condom as inventor.

2° On the part of the woman: a) if, during copula, she uses an occlusive pessary (sterilet), i.e., a certain thing introduced into the deepest part of the vagina for closing the mouth of the uterus lest the seed pass into it, for example a metal clasp, sponge, cotton, linen threads, etc.; or a pseudo-vagina, i.e., a thin membrane disposed within the whole vagina, into which the seed is emitted; b) if, after copula has been completed, she makes a vaginal washing, by which, with the aid of a syringe or irrigator, the seed is expelled by water or an antiseptic substance; or if, immediately before or after copula, she performs an injection of a chemical substance (for example anticonceptional powder) or of an acid liquid, by which the seed is killed.

2. Nevertheless no mode is altogether certain. For the preservative covering (condom or pseudo-vagina) can be torn; the occlusive pessary can be badly adapted or, during copula, moved from its place; simple withdrawal or vaginal washing does not always prevent some sperm from being ejaculated before withdrawal or from already having passed into the uterus before washing; a chemical substance sprinkled through the whole vagina before copula does not always have perfect efficacy.

955. Principle. Onanism and every other mode of performing copula by which it is deprived of its natural order to generation is intrinsically against nature and therefore essentially and gravely evil. - This is certain from the constant and formal doctrine of Christian tradition and of the Church.

It is a mortal sin, as directly contrary to the primary end of matrimony and matrimonial copula, and opposed to conjugal fidelity, a mere abuse of the genital organs against the order instituted by God and nature, by which they pervert a most noble thing into the most base act of a passion of ignominy: for it lacks the due order to its natural end and to the good of the species. Hence malice is intrinsic to the act, so that it cannot be made honorable by any cause, however urgent.

It is proved:

1° By natural reason: to turn an act deliberately away from the end for which it is naturally destined is to act against nature and is intrinsically evil. But every conjugal act is naturally destined to the procreation of the human race. Therefore to turn it away from this end is against nature and intrinsically evil. And this gravely, because it is against the natural order of human nature itself and directly against the common good itself of the human race.

2° From the doctrine of the Church, which is clear from proposition 49 condemned by Innocent XI and from many and repeated declarations of the Holy Office (May 20, 1851; Apr. 19, 1853; Mar. 26, 1897; Nov. 23, 1922) and of the Sacred Penitentiary (twelve times from Nov. 15, 1816, to June 3, 1916), and most recently from the encyclical Casti Connubii, in which Pius XI did not hesitate to declare that such is the very Christian doctrine handed down from the beginning and always: "Since therefore certain ones, manifestly receding from the Christian doctrine handed down already from the beginning and never interrupted, have recently judged that another doctrine concerning this mode of acting must be solemnly preached, the Catholic Church, to which God himself has committed the teaching and defending of integrity and honesty of morals, placed in the midst of this ruin of morals, that she may preserve the chastity of the nuptial covenant immune from this foul stain, in sign of her divine legation, lifts high her voice through our mouth and again promulgates: any use of matrimony whatsoever in the exercise of which, through the design of men, it is deprived of its natural power of procreating life, violates the law of God and of nature; and those who have committed any such thing are stained with the blemish of grave guilt." Here three things are affirmed: the use of matrimony which by design is deprived of its power of generating is 1) against divine law; 2) against the law of nature; and 3) a grave sin.

Hence concerning Onanism the following conclusions are established:

1° An onanistic man cannot be absolved unless he repents and resolves; likewise a woman formally cooperating or consenting, or one who tries to expel the seed by washings. Indeed, one who uses a preservative means is bound to destroy it as an occasion of sin before absolution; and this is per se and regularly to be urged by the confessor.

2° A wife does not sin if, for a moderately grave cause, she renders the debt to an onanistic man withdrawing himself before the sowing of seed, or even seeks it from him. But a grave cause, as is clear from the responses of the Sacred Penitentiary, exists if otherwise she would incur grave evils, for example dissensions in marriage, blows, adultery of the husband, her own incontinence, or prolonged abstinence from the use of marriage, etc. The reason is that the action begins in the due mode, so that of itself it is apt for generation; but if it is unduly terminated, the whole guilt is held to be on the part of the man, and on the part of the woman there is only material and mediate cooperation, which on account of a grave motive can be furnished to the sin of another. For this is, as Pius XI says, to suffer sin rather than to commit it. This is to be understood provided the wife does not consent to that mode of acting against nature, but detests it and bears herself merely passively toward it; otherwise it would be formal cooperation. Nevertheless she could actively cooperate, immediately before copula and during it by exciting herself, and rejoice in the pleasure (even perfect pleasure), as long as the action is done in the due mode; likewise she may rejoice in the good effect of such copula, for example in preservation from the troubles and labors of pregnancy or childbirth, although this is dangerous.

1. Therefore she can seek copula from a man withdrawing himself, and only sometimes, namely once or another time, is she bound to abstain by reason of charity; not more often, because then it would already be a grave inconvenience, while charity does not oblige with grave inconvenience for avoiding merely passive scandal.

2. The same holds theoretically for a man, when before the sowing of seed the woman withdraws herself; but in practice there ordinarily is not a grave sufficient reason on the part of the man, because he can rather easily impede the withdrawal of the woman, even by physical force.

But even then the woman is bound because of charity to warn the man and show her own repugnance, and this not once or another time only, but rather often; yet not inopportunely, but opportunely. Indeed, if she can, she must deter the man from this crime by endearments, prayers, and other testimonies of affection (S. Pen., Nov. 15, 1816), even by denial of the debt if she thus hopes to procure the amendment of the husband.

3° But a wife cannot voluntarily cooperate and render the debt to an onanistic man employing a preservative instrument, whether he himself puts on a covering or imposes an occlusive covering upon the wife, because this is immediate participation in an intrinsically evil action, and therefore truly is to commit sin; for then there is no copula of itself apt for generation. Such congress, namely, admitted on each side, is vitiated from the beginning and intrinsically evil; whence voluntary cooperation, even merely material and passive, is altogether illicit. And therefore the wife is bound to resist positively according to her powers (for example by moving herself or using her hands), and she cannot yield except to prevailing force, after the likeness of an oppressed woman; in which case, from such a most grave cause, as to that which she cannot impede, she can bear herself merely permissively, provided she excludes every consent to delight (S. Pen., Apr. 19, 1853, and June 3, 1916; Prov. Counc. of Mechlin, n. 84).

4° Likewise a wife would sin gravely if she induced the man to onanism, whether directly or indirectly, for example by producing insistent complaints concerning more numerous offspring, concerning the pains of childbirth, concerning the inconveniences of gestation, etc.

5° When a wife uses an occlusive pessary or other means impeding generation, the husband ought by marital authority to prohibit it and remove her from those things; indeed, if it can be done, to take away and destroy the means and instruments. But if nothing is accomplished and grave inconveniences are to be feared, certain authors judge that the husband can even seek the debt and complete copula, provided he bears himself merely materially and passively as regards the impediment of generation. Now:

a) It would certainly be illicit if the wife used a pseudo-vagina, because then the act would be intrinsically evil from the beginning.

b) On the contrary, it is probably licit if, with the man contradicting her, she uses anticonceptional powder or a medicine by which the seed is killed, at least if it is done after the act, or if by vaginal washing she tries to expel it; because then both the act and the genital organ of the woman remain substantially the same: for the act itself is done well and the seed is deposited in the due vessel, but the vice is not from the mode of acting, but exists independently from the act and is posterior to it and is to be attributed to the wife alone.

c) But if the wife uses a sponge or an occlusive pessary, whether the same reason holds, we ourselves would not dare to settle, but let wiser men see to it. The matter is not so clear, whether in the case the copula itself is vitiated from the beginning, although from the beginning and during copula there is present an impediment of conception from the closing of the uterus; because the mouth of the uterus is not an organ which, like the penis, has a part in copula, but the latter is completed in the due mode if the seed is deposited in the natural vagina. This happens in the case, although the action of nature, to be continued after copula, is impeded, but by the woman. Hence in practice, until the Church pronounces, the husband can be absolved, provided he is prepared to stand by the commands of the Holy See.

Nor is it an objection: if it is illicit for the woman to cooperate with a man using a preservative instrument, by equal right it must also be illicit for the man to cooperate with a woman who uses a similar instrument. For it can be doubted whether the instrument, as regards copula, is altogether similar. And although the rights are equal, nevertheless the parts of the man and of the woman in the conjugal act are not the same, but greater parts belong to the man; and therefore the man will be able to cooperate with the sin of the wife more easily than she with the sin of the man.

1. Fr. Vermeersch affirmed this in the first edition of his work De Castitate, but afterward retracted himself (cf. Periodica de re canonica, 1925, fasc. II, and Th. M., vol. IV, 69). The act now seems to him evil from the beginning, because the vagina is already substantially vitiated: for this is essentially a canal leading to the uterus; but since in the case it is closed, it also ceases to be a canal. Hence a woman who has a naturally closed vagina is impotent. - The argument, saving a better judgment, does not seem certain. For natural closing is one thing, merely artificial closing another; an organ closed because of its structure is one thing, an organ suitably constructed but closed on account of an accidental impediment placed from without is another, which leaves the vagina perfectly whole. It is also helpful to note that by this mode only the passage of the seed into the uterus and thus to the ovum is impeded. Now if the uterus has been removed or the oviduct interrupted, and the passage to the ovule has already been made impossible, the conjugal act nevertheless remains licit; likewise, during pregnancy, when passage into the uterus is impeded because it is closed.

956. Corollaries. - 1. From the principles stated, response can be made to the question: whether a wife can cooperate with sodomitical copula? This also is opposed to the natural end of copula and to conjugal fidelity, which requires that spouses not use the body except in a mode apt for generation; for neither has a right over the body of the other against nature. Now, one must answer as for artificial onanism: with such copula, as being intrinsically evil and vitiated from the beginning, it is never licit to cooperate positively or actively, nor even to cooperate merely passively; but the wife must try, by resisting positively as much as she can (for example by movement and with her hands), to impede the sodomitical intercourse of the man; and if unwillingly nevertheless she is compelled to yield to prevailing force, she must never consent to venereal delight perhaps arising from it. For if it is never licit for her to cooperate with artificial onanism, a fortiori this holds concerning the sodomitical mode, which is more perverse (cf. S. Pen., Apr. 3, 1916).

2. From onanism and sodomy improperly so called there must be distinguished the act by which spouses come together after the manner of animals, yet in such a way that copula is done in the vagina; in this case some say that they have come together backwards or from behind. Then the confessor ought to ask whether in this mode generation was possible; if they answer that it was possible, it is inferred that the act was not against nature but only disordered in position, beside nature; and this sin does not exceed venial sin. The confessor should never of his own accord have discourse concerning the position to be had in copula.

3. From onanism there differs altogether the practice of having copula only in the time of agenesis, during which time conception in no way or more rarely occurs; whence by this practice generation becomes little probable. For such a manner of acting is not of itself sinful, since spouses can contain themselves as long as they wish, and besides they do nothing against the end of matrimony at the time when they come together (S. Pen., June 16, 1880), provided this is done from a right intention or a just motive and with the due circumstances observed. Nevertheless the bishops of Belgium deservedly warn: "that the time of agenesis should not, however, be proposed to spouses themselves as if by it generation would certainly be avoided."

1. The time of agenesis formerly was established thus by the physician Capellmann and others: from ten or fourteen days after the menstruation begun up to three or four days before the new menstruation; for they thought that ovulation and therefore fertility coincided with menstruation, so that during the month the woman would be:

But it was discovered that menstruation does not coincide with ovulation, although it is a connected phenomenon; rather it has place between two ovulations. Thus Dr. Siegel established that a woman is fertile from day 5 to 20 after menstruation has occurred, sterile from day 1 to 4, and from 21 to 28. But now, according to the most recent experiments of Dr. Knaus, a woman would be fertile from day 11 to 17 after menstruation has occurred, sterile from day 1 to 10 and from day 18 to 28. According to Dr. Ogino, a woman would be fertile from day 12 to 19 before the following menstruation (exceptionally to day 24), but sterile for 11 days before the following menstruation and for 9 days (exceptionally only for 4) after menstruation has occurred. This can be proposed schematically thus:

Concerning these things it must be noted:

Onanism consists in this, that the man, after intercourse has been begun, withdraws himself before emission and pours out the semen outside, in order to impede generation. It takes its name from Onan, the second son of the patriarch Judah, who after his brother Her had died, according to custom, was compelled to take his widow Tamar, so that he might raise up seed for his brother. Moreover Onan, as is had in Gen. xxxviii, 9 and 10: "Entering to the wife of his brother, he poured out the seed upon the earth, lest children be born in the name of his brother. And therefore the Lord struck him, because he did a detestable thing."

I say. Voluntary onanism is always a mortal sin, as something grave against nature; and therefore it can never be licit for spouses. The reason is both because it is repugnant to the primary end of Marriage and of itself tends toward the extinction of society, and because it was strictly prohibited by the supreme Legislator and Author of nature, as is drawn from the text of Genesis just related. Besides, when there was a question concerning the theological note of this proposition: "For honorable reasons it is licit for spouses to use marriage in that mode in which Onan used it," response was made by the S. Penitentiary on the day 21 May 1851, that the said "proposition is scandalous, erroneous, and contrary to the natural law of Marriage."

I said voluntary onanism; for a wife can be excused from sin if for a grave cause she renders the debt to an onanist husband, provided internally she does not consent to his sin, and externally shows her repugnance by serious admonitions or other signs of displeasure. The reason is that she is engaged in a licit thing and uses her right, of which she cannot be deprived on account of the malice of the man; nor does she properly cooperate with the sin of another, since she has herself only passively, and the intrinsically evil action consists only in the act of the man then withdrawing against the order of nature. This same thing was declared on the day 8 June 1842 by the S. Penitentiary in the following words:

"Since the whole disorder of the act proceeds from the malice of the man, who, instead of consummating, withdraws himself and pours out outside the vessel; therefore if the woman after due admonitions accomplishes nothing, and the man insists by threatening blows or death, she herself will be able, as approved theologians teach, simply to permit it without sin, and this from a grave cause which excuses her; since charity, by which she is bound to impede that, does not oblige with so great an inconvenience."

But in no way can a woman acquiesce to an onanist husband who would wish to use an instrument called "male protector," because intercourse of this kind would not only be completed, but also begun, against the law of nature. - Cf. Lehmkuhl, vol. 5, n. 858. To a man using such instruments the woman must oppose that resistance which a virgin opposes to an invader. It is most difficult in these frauds against nature to have or find good faith as companion of the act; for the matter is so alien to nature itself; surely the case will be rare in which bad faith is lacking.

You Will Resolve. 1°. The woman sins gravely who induces the man to abuse marriage, even indirectly or tacitly, for example, by complaining about the number of offspring, about the labors of childbirth or of the education of children, or by repeatedly saying that she will die in the next childbirth, etc.

2°. Likewise the woman sins gravely by internally consenting to the detestable action of the man, even if externally she shows repugnance. Yet if she admits an inefficacious complacency not concerning the evil work in itself, but only concerning the effect that follows, say concerning immunity from the inconveniences of gestation or from the dangers of childbirth, of itself she does not sin, although complacency of this kind sometimes does not lack danger. But one must altogether beware lest, by manifestation of it made to the man, she render him more spirited for sinning more freely and more often.

3°. The wife is bound, at least ordinarily, to warn the onanist man concerning the obligation of acting rightly, and, insofar as it is in her, to turn him away from the perverse manner of acting. Nor does it suffice that she has warned him once, but sometimes she must repeat the admonitions, unless she is certain that a new admonition will profit nothing. Nevertheless then also she must make her repugnance manifest in some way.

4°. It will also be the office of the wife to move the husband by blandishments, various signs of love, prayers, and exhortations to completing the act rightly or abstaining from it altogether, because experience establishes that very many onanist men, allured by their wives, have betaken themselves to a better fruit. Today especially wives can more easily induce onanist husbands to abstain, since this abstinence, as will be said at once, ought not to be long-lasting.

5°. Various means are nowadays applied for impeding the generation of offspring, such as an envelope into which the man emits semen, or a sponge, or an occlusive pessary, or washing, or infusion of a killing liquid, or any other method exercised either before the act, or in the act, or after the act toward that most evil end. All these put on the character and most grave malice of Onanism; for they are repugnant to the very primary end of marriage, and are against nature. Onanism or voluntary sterility thus induced is surely always grave sin: generally speaking, it has arisen from a materialistic and pagan conception of life; therefore the doctrine of the Christian faith must be opposed to it: our life is a way to the fatherland, and the time of probation must be passed in observing the very laws of God. The joys and burdens of Marriage must be borne holily, and confidence in Divine Providence must be increased. Numerousness of offspring is a sign of divine blessing; the curse of God is upon those violating his law. Let mothers trust in God, to whose glory new offspring is born. - Cf. Instruction des Eveques de Belgique sur l'Onanisme. Nouv. Rev. Theol., vol. 41, p. 616.

Question 1. What must be said concerning those who, so that no offspring may be born to them, abstain from the use of marriage for some days in each month?

Resp. As regards the truth of the matter, it must be said that today it is admitted, but not without exceptions, and consequently not with absolute certitude, that the time apt for conception is that which immediately precedes or follows the menstrual flow, when, namely, it appears both that a mature ovum is present and that whatever is necessary for the formation and nutrition of the fetus has been prepared by nature. Wherefore physiologists say, and practice often confirms it, that ordinarily no offspring arises if spouses have intercourse only during those fourteen or fifteen days which are more distant from the menstrual flow.

But as regards liceity, it certainly does not appear why limited abstinence of this kind from marital intercourse is to be condemned. For if it is licit to abstain altogether, why will it not be licit to abstain for fifteen days in each month? - Nor should you say that the sin consists in the end which is intended, namely the lack of offspring; for it is answered that to wish to lack offspring is not evil in itself and of itself, but only then, when this desire is expressed by a positive manner of acting by which offspring is either impeded from being conceived, or once conceived is destroyed. Besides, concerning this question every doubt has been removed by a recent response of the S. Penitentiary, which has itself thus: "Spouses using marriage in the aforesaid mode are not to be disturbed, and a confessor can insinuate the opinion concerning which there is question, yet cautiously, to those spouses whom by another reason he has vainly attempted to lead away from the detestable crime of onanism." - Cf. Nouvelle Revue Theologique, vol. 13, pp. 458 and seq. - Baller. note (a), p. 917. - Capellmann, p. 89.

Question 2. Is a spouse bound to render the debt to a co-party who is infected with a horrible disease?

Resp. If he fears that grave harm will arise to himself from it, he is not bound; but if no harm or almost no harm will arise, of itself he is bound. The reason for the first: because the infected party does not have the right. For his power over the body of the other is not as to those things which are for the preservation of the individual, but as to those things which are ordained to the generative power. And therefore "the man is bound to render the debt to the wife in those things which pertain to the generation of offspring, with nevertheless first the safety of the person preserved." The reason for the second: because no cause excusing of itself appears. Nevertheless, although in the first case of great harm he is not bound to render, surely it would be licit to do this from conjugal love and it would often be an excellent work of charity. Indeed, even if "weak offspring is generated, it is better thus to be than not to be at all," as St. Thomas says, Supp. in Sum. Theol. Q. 64, a. 1, ad. 4. In this matter any prudent man will hand himself over to be healed by the hands of an honorable physician. Nor then is much to be feared for the offspring. For as Osler says, Practice of Medicine, p. 238: Happily it happens in by far the greater number of cases that, when the applied treatment has been perfected, the offspring comes forth immune. - Cf. Nouv. Rev. Theol., v. 45, p. 611. - Wernz, v. 4, n. 256.

Warning. Extremes are to be avoided concerning the mode in which a confessor ought to conduct himself toward spouses altogether silent concerning the use of marriage. For just as it would be erroneous to assert that the confessor must never interrogate concerning this matter, so also to assert that he must always do so. Wherefore if there is a serious foundation, which indeed ought to be clear from the circumstances, that the penitent indulges in onanism and nevertheless confesses nothing, interrogations should be made, but altogether prudently and cautiously. And since, among us, this plague does not have roots so deep and universal as elsewhere, perhaps it will be better to be deficient than to abound in making questions.

Behold the golden words of the Supreme Pontiff, certainly worthy to be weighed:

"To pervert, both privately and publicly, that conformation of morals which the Church brought forth and polished, and to call human society back, with every trace of Christian wisdom and honesty gradually deleted in it, to the miserable institutions of the pagans: this is what today they will, what too many strive for, and would that it were without effect. But domestic society is proposed to the principal darts of the wicked; since it contains the beginnings and as it were seeds of the common society of men, they see that that conversion which they strive for, or rather corruption of the human community, will necessarily follow if once they have corrupted domestic institutions. Therefore, by sanctioning the law concerning divorces, they tear away the stability of wedlock; by compelling youth to be instructed by public discipline, which for the most part is most alien to Religion, in a matter of the greatest weight, they cut away the sinews of paternal power; and, by proclaiming the shameful art of obtaining pleasure and defrauding nature, they impiously dry up the very fountain of the human race, and they defile the sanctity of the marriage-bed with most impure morals." - Letter of Benedict XV given to Rev. Fr. Matthew Crawley Boevey, 27 April 1915.

The two genera of sexual vice are the “natural” and the “unnatural.” Natural vice is procreative (or “integral,” “natural,” “unitive”) sexual intercourse outside of the bonds of marriage, principally deriving its immorality from the risk to potential children proceeding from the act by the absence of the protection of a stable household such as is provided in principle by marriage. Unnatural vice is essentially infertile sexual activity, whether inside of marriage or not, deriving its immorality from a corruption of the right end of the sexual faculty in the very use of that same faculty, which is a direct affront to the Creator Who designed that faculty for the weighty purposes of keeping the human race in existence and bringing souls to Himself.³⁵ Using the sexual faculty’s associated external organs in a way that makes use of the pleasures which are designed to incentivize and complete natural sexual union but either does not dispose gametes (sex cells, viz. sperm and ova) for procreative union according to the natural design of the body (i.e. sodomitic acts, autoeroticism) or actively impedes the well-functioning of gametes in view of preventing procreative union (contraception) is unnatural vice. ³⁵ See ST II-II q. 154, a. 11; it is true some conceptive sexual relations are arguably categorized by St. Thomas as “unnatural,” but these are unnatural in a secondary way, viz., as to mode rather than as to end, and they are not as grave as sins against the end. It is unfortunate that St. Thomas was as ambiguous as he was about what he was exactly referring to. See ST II-II q. 154, a. 11; a. 12, ad. 4. I propose later on in this work that IVF is unnatural vice by way of “excess,” that is, by conceiving outside the natural order. Of course, there is no treatment of such things by St. Thomas.

Of course, there are many objections to the claim that these latter acts are “unnatural” by appealing to false analogies – “using a straw,” “walking on one’s hands,” “spitting,” “running on a treadmill” – which presume to show that many acts which seem unnatural are morally unproblematic and so the claim that unnatural sexual vice is true vice is indefensible.^{36 36} St. Thomas actually addresses the example of walking on one’s hands in SCG III, ch. 122: “Nor, in fact, should it be deemed a slight sin for a man to arrange for the emission of semen apart from the proper purpose of generating and bringing up children, on the argument that it is either a slight sin, or none at all, for a person to use a part of the body for a different use than that to which it is directed by nature (say, for instance, one chose to walk on his hands, or to use his feet for something usually done with the hands) because man’s good is not much opposed by such inordinate use. However, the inordinate emission of semen is incompatible with the natural good; namely, the preservation of the species.”

These sorts of arguments also fail to make proper distinctions about how diverse faculties actually work. For example, the digestive faculty is an “inward facing” faculty – it takes matter (food) and uses it to do something to oneself (deliver nutrients). To “pervert” or fundamentally undermine the digestive faculty would not mean using indigestible food, or even to purge oneself of digestible food; rather, it would mean somehow hijacking the digestive system as such to do something other than pass nutrition into the cells of the body. The use of the digestive faculty’s organs which are by their nature directed to a certain end by making them act upon something which is not and cannot be conducive to its natural end of delivering nutrients to the body. For example, to create a kind of “human battery” which somehow saps away the nutrients and calories prepared for the body’s use by the act of digestion accomplished by the digestive organs insofar as they are exclusively designed to deliver nutrients to the body. (Of course, this would quickly end in one’s death if not reversed.) Breathing is much the same – if one’s lungs could somehow be rewired to filter the air in a room rather than oxygenate one’s bloodstream, we would see the perversion of the faculty of breathing. The faculty of communication is “outward facing,” as it terminates in something other than oneself, namely, another person’s mind. The sexual faculty is also an “outward facing” faculty. Its object is “another,” first being its procreative pair as a primary agent (man acting upon woman) and second its procreative pair as a secondary causes (sperm acting upon ovum). Third, there is the final terminus itself, namely, the child which results from the union of gametes. The terminus being “another human” is what makes the sexual faculty’s intentionality “outward facing” even in the woman, whose principal act is a direct function of the vegetal soul (rather than the animal soul, as with the man).³⁷ More will be said momentarily about the importance of “secondary causes” in the sexual faculty’s structure. The point is that making proper distinctions about what is actually occurring in “abnormal” uses of various faculties is critical to having a clear way to explain what is at issue. ³⁷ The “vegetal soul” is the “part” or “dimension” of a human being’s soul which is “plant-like” – its powers are augmentation (growth), nutrition, and reproduction (the production of gametes and their fundamental disposition for procreative union). The “animal soul” is the part of a human being’s soul which is “animal-like” – its powers include especially sensation and locomotion. The man’s sexual act is principally animal in that it requires movement and sensation in a way that the woman’s principal sexual act (ovulation and reception of male gametes) does not, as it is fundamentally involuntary and passive, though of course normal sexual acts involve the use of the rational soul (the free choice to engage in the act), and sensation and motion on the part of the woman. The point is that the most fundamental structure of human reproduction does not include these as necessities.

Without an exhaustive “debunking” of objections based on false analogies about “perverting” or “opposing nature,” we can say such analogies always at least miss the core of the argument, over and above what has been said about the structure of faculties: the matter being disposed for the infusion of a rational soul meant to benefit the earth and ultimately to worship God forever in Heaven (rather than maintaining one’s own equilibrium or good pleasure) is not rightly subjected to the direct control of a mere individual human being the way bodily motion or other such things are,³⁸ and the order of human generation and its act are essentially and primarily related to the aforementioned weighty purposes, which purposes are thwarted by subverting that order by using wrong matter (i.e. homosexual acts, autoeroticism, etc.) or by actively impeding generation (contraception).³⁹ This is an affront more or less directly against the Creator Who designed the order of human generation to work in a certain way through particular organs and acts, which order is being opposed by the practitioner of unnatural vice. Mere human beings are not set over the matter into which God wishes to infuse a rational soul insofar as that matter is part of an unfolding process which God designed for Himself to use; the matter regards what is equal to man (another human being) and what is above man (the creative power of God); sex cells are not like a normal plant or animal in this sense.^{40 38} We have a special kind of authority or discretion over faculties and powers which directly affect ourselves because of our own natural knowledge and love for our own being and good. So long as we respect the principal of totality (the good of the whole) and avoid indecency and scandal, we enjoy great freedom – i.e., to walk on our hands. ³⁹ There is no shortage of ways to misunderstand the point. What must be grasped is that Christian moral science fundamentally concerns order rather than consequences. God put an order into human generation’s act and its secondary causes, which order must be respected. To disrespect the design of the Creator, especially in such a serious matter, is to offend Him as its architect. Beyond this, it is relatively easy to see the social contagion of unnatural vice together with its catastrophic social effects. For a historical study on general laxity in sexual morals and the resulting tendency towards civilizational collapse, see J.D. Unwin’s monumental study documenting this phenomenon, Sex and Culture (1934). ⁴⁰ The older theory of “delayed ensoulment” in which a “second conception” occurs (viz., the infusion of the rational soul into pre-human matter resulting from the “first conception”) is a helpful foil; here, to kill the pre-human matter is treated as the sin of abortion on account of that which God will do to that matter, that is, give it a rational soul, even if the juridical consequences might have differed at times. The killing takes away this matter from God, Who designed the process of human generation. It would perhaps be appropriate to call the killing of conceived pre-human matter “supercontraception.” (Note that John Paul II leaves space for the “delayed ensoulment” position, even though this opinion is presently out of favor. See Evangelium Vitae, §60.)

The average presentation that is made in parochial environments for natural family planning (“NFP”) leaves many people wondering whether and how it differs from contraception. To summarize, NFP involves monitoring the fertility cycles of the woman, usually in view of using the infertile periods for relations which will not result in children or are at least minimally likely to. (NFP can also be used in order to specify the most fertile periods of the woman in view of maximizing the chance of conception, which use does not concern us here – the term “NFP” in this book means “continence during fertile times combined with conjugal acts during infertile times in view of avoiding conception.”) The rigorist objection raised against the use of NFP is that it amounts to contraception, insofar as it uses and presumes upon infertility as a condition for the marital act. The typical rigorist supposes that one forms an intention against having children, then acts in the course of using marriage to guarantee this, with the interior disposition summarized by the statement, “I would not use marriage if it would result in conception,” and thereby sins against the nature of the marriage act and therefore against God just the same as “normal contraception.” It is also sometimes said that a “contraceptive mentality” animates this practice.⁴¹ The argument appears strong – the same result is obtained as with artificial contraception, and the same condition is set down, namely, that there is no reasonable possibility of conception. The couple appears to “use” the infertile period of the woman as a contraceptive means. What difference is there between NFP and artificial contraception which does not reduce to “physicalist” morals? ⁴¹ This phrase lends itself to many meanings, such that it is not particularly useful for precise moral discourse.

The familiar rejoinder is twofold: first, that merely abstaining from sexual activity when there is fertility is not a sin, and second, that NFP trains the couple in virtue and communication. Both of these statements are (mostly) true, but they largely miss the point. The first argument does not address the reality that the commission of the sexual act during infertile periods specifically depending upon the infertility of the woman is not merely abstaining from sexual activity during fertile periods, it is to do something. In other words, the default state of an individual person is not conjugal activity; to use marriage requires a positive choice. Therefore, this particular choice of a conjugal act must find a justification for itself within the context of trying to avoid conception in the same act, and, if we are to save Catholic moral theology, this justification must somehow avoid collapsing into a justification of artificial contraception. The second argument does not respond to the central objection at all but merely gives a probable good consequence of the discipline. Unfortunately, one does not often find much discussion beyond these two points in the popular literature. There is a marked failure to grapple with the objection seriously, when in fact this point confuses an enormous amount of people.

St. Thomas definitively rejects natural relations which happen to be naturally infertile from the category of unnatural vice:

It is evident from this that every emission of semen, in such a way that generation cannot follow, is contrary to the good for man. And if this be done deliberately, it must be a sin. Now, I am speaking of a way from which, in itself, generation could not result: such would be any emission of semen apart from the natural union of male and female. For which reason, sins of this type are called contrary to nature. But, if by accident generation cannot result from the emission of semen, then this is not a reason for it being against nature, or a sin; as for instance, if the woman happens to be sterile.^{42 42} Summa Contra Gentiles (hereafter SCG), III, 122, 5: “Ex quo patet quod contra bonum hominis est omnis emissio seminis tali modo quod generatio sequi non possit. Et si ex proposito hoc agatur, oportet esse peccatum. Dico autem modum ex quo generatio sequi non potest secundum se: sicut omnis emissio seminis sine naturali coniunctione maris et feminae; propter quod huiusmodi peccata contra naturam dicuntur. Si autem per accidens generatio ex emissione seminis sequi non possit, non propter hoc est contra naturam, nec peccatum: sicut si contingat mulierem sterilem esse.” Note that “accident” here is referring to the nature of a thing itself as distinct from its essential characteristics; it is not about one’s knowledge of infertility, but rather the condition of infertility inhering in what is designed to be fertile.

The fundamental order of the sexual faculties of the man and the woman are preserved in the material order in the case of infertility, they are simply inhibited on account of a defect in the functioning of the sexual faculty itself, in this case, of the woman. It is the system itself which constitutes the sexual faculty whence the defect comes which renders the woman infertile. To make use of the sexual faculty when it is thus defective is not a deliberate frustration of the sexual faculty’s end, like contraception; the latter introduces something alien to the sexual faculty in order to subvert its end in an otherwise natural and voluntary sexual act⁴³ (such as an “intrauterine device” or “IUD”) or removes something from the sexual faculty by force in order to subvert its end (such as a hysterectomy done for the sake of sterility). Otherwise, even to pay the debt in the case of a spouse who is known to be habitually sterile would constitute a grave sin against nature, which is untrue on St. Thomas’ account of the duty to pay the debt. ⁴³ Non-abortifacient retroactive contraception can be justified when the act was not voluntary or was in and of itself illicit – one is certainly not bound to will the natural consequences (viz., resulting procreation) of what is immoral in itself according to its species (i.e. adultery) – but in so contracepting one must also at least implicitly repudiate the act itself. A voluntary natural act of adultery is actually made more evil by the use of retroactive contraception if the evil act itself is not repented of, as one consents both to the adultery and to the perversion of its act. In fact, one is bound to use contraceptive means to expel seed from such a union, just as one is bound to repent of the act.

The core of the difference between NFP and contraception regards the role of secondary causes with their own proper finality towards fructification or attainment of the naturally indicated end, namely, procreation. The point reduces to the distinction between the intentional occasion of failure and the prevention of success. This distinction is subtle and easily missed.

Secondary causes (gametes) set in motion by the principal agents (the man and the woman) are not the same as the principal agent itself.⁴⁴ Gametes (sperm and egg) have their own causative power ordered towards the end of procreation and thus have a kind of “natural intention” or inclination. This inclination is worked toward by exterior dispositions flowing from the nature of the male and female reproductive systems, including locomotion (self-movement) on the part of the sperm. Due to the design of nature, subsequent to natural completed sexual union, gametes are “supposed to” meet and cause procreation by principles belonging to their own constitution as cells, and to do so is their “responsibility” so to speak, which responsibility is not to be usurped by any other cause. This is because in fact the sexual faculty is designed to work by means of the disposition of gametes for meeting their procreative pair by the natural union of man and woman through the exterior reproductive organs. Therefore, the only responsibility that a man or a woman has with respect to gametes insofar as gametes are causative of procreation is to dispose gametes to causing procreation by such natural bodily union, and to usurp the role of the gametes themselves in finding their procreative pair is itself to do something unnatural by excess, such as with IVF or other artificial insemination procedures.⁴⁵ What this ultimately means is that if the gametes do not meet and cause procreation after natural union, it is not primarily the case that the man or the woman failed to cause procreation, it is primarily the case that the gametes failed to cause procreation. The question is then whether the man or woman did something to interfere with the well-functioning of the gametes or the processes which affect their reproductive disposition, somehow impeding their natural intentionality toward each other. Interference with the well-functioning of gametes or the process by which they are disposed for reproductive union in view of restricting or eliminating the possibility of conception is contraception properly speaking.^{46 44} The “principal cause” or “primary cause” is the being which reproduces its like, in this case a human. ⁴⁵ It is probably advantageous to speak of IVF and similar procedures as “unnatural vice by excess” and non-procreative acts as “unnatural vice by defect.” ⁴⁶ This would include the use of chemical agents which directly impede gametes (like spermicide), and it would also extend to the use of chemical agents that reduce ovulation (“the pill”) specifically in order to prevent conception. Inducing functional hypothalamic amenorrhea (excessive stress or exercise interrupting menstruation) to prevent conception would also seem to come under this category, albeit without introducing a foreign substance into the body; the point is that the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian system is supposed to work a certain way, namely, producing regular menstruation, according to its nature in relation to the whole person, which well-functioning is being interrupted in view of preventing conception. Even though it is natural “as a reaction,” the stress is the kind of thing which should not be there, just like blood should be in the extremities but if shock is induced then it is natural that blood gathers in the torso. Such inflictions upon oneself can only be justified under the principle of totality, to which the inhibition of the proper functioning of a faculty in its very use would never correspond. (Of course, the pill and extraordinary amounts of exercise could theoretically licitly be used for other reasons without the desired effect of infertility, which risky and harmful behavior calls for its own justification through the principle of totality but would not be contraceptive strictly speaking except materially. To be formally contraceptive, the will must specifically incline to interrupting the well-functioning of the reproductive system in order that gametes are prevented from meeting their reproductive pair in a freely chosen sexual act. Accidentally obtaining such a state would become formally contraceptive when a woman has the will “to have achieved this state in order to avoid conception in conjugal acts” – merely delighting in the lack of fertility in a given act on account of the abnormal state of her body, while likely immoral in many or even nearly all cases due to a lack of generosity in procreation and an excess of desire for carnal union and even lack of love for one’s own health, is not itself contraceptive strictly speaking – it is only toeing the line.)

This intermediate step in the chain of causation in the procreative use of the sexual faculty is absolutely critical to understand. It bears repeating: the sperm and the egg fail to cause procreation when they do not meet or otherwise do not unite to form a new individual life when the principal agents (the man and the woman) engage in the exterior act which nature ordains for the procreative disposition of gametes (conjugal union). The man and the woman only fail to procreate by way of extending to them what is properly said of the gametes. If something is added or removed which is part of the natural system in which gametes are disposed for union (the entire reproductive system) so that they fail to unite, the gametes are prevented from procreating; if the gametes are simply foreseen not to unite because of infertility, and that infertile condition is chosen intentionally to accompany the act yet without the will to cause infertility by an intervention if needed to procure it, the gametes are merely intentionally occasioned to fail to procreate.

This intentional occasioning of failure could be due either to an intrinsic problem with the gametes themselves (viz., unhealthy sperm or eggs which cannot cause procreation due to that condition), or more frequently some disposition of the reproductive system (usually in the woman) towards not facilitating procreative union of gametes. With NFP we are concerned with the condition characterized by the lack of a fertile egg having been released from an ovary within a certain timeframe which would allow for natural union of that egg with a sperm cell. This condition of “periodic natural infertility” is one which would not allow for the gametes to reach their natural end of procreative pairing following a normal use of the sexual faculty (viz., a conjugal act). To engage in conjugal acts during known periodic natural infertility so that the meeting of gametes will not occur is merely to occasion the failure of procreation rather than to prevent it.⁴⁷ To add something to the reproductive system, or to remove something from the reproductive system, either of the man or the woman, so that conception will not occur is to prevent conception, not merely to occasion its failure.^{48 47} Habitual infertility can also be such a condition, but it is not the main concern with respect to NFP. ⁴⁸ Beyond an actual intention to create infertility by a positive intervention in the present (i.e. the normal case of using a birth control pill), the key question is whether an intervention into the reproductive system to prevent conception is virtually intended, whether by having previously created habitual infertility and continuing indirectly (or mindlessly) to will its efficacy in preventing conception, or a willingness to cause infertility by a temporary or permanent intervention in the reproductive system if it was actually necessary in order to prevent conception (as opposed to there being presently a condition making procreation unlikely or impossible, such as illness, age, or periodic natural infertility); this is to say, if one would contracept if needed to prevent pregnancy, then one’s sexual act is contraceptive by a conditional (and normally virtual) intention and comes under the same kind of moral judgment. This is the most appropriate use of the phrase “contraceptive mentality” from a casuistic point of view. The will for naturally occurring processes to cause infertility, whether cyclical (ovulation, etc.) or permanent (menopause), is equivalent to willing the woman’s health, up to the point where one is too desirous of sexual activity done on account of that infertility but it will not be contraceptive absent a willingness to intervene positively if necessary to precent conception (virtual intention). Desiring injury or sickness that causes infertility, yet without actually intervening to cause injury or sickness, is indeed a perverse will insofar as one wants injury or sickness and insofar as the infertility caused by it is willed out of immoderate desire for conjugal acts which would be done on account of that infertility, but if there is no will to make a positive intervention by causing injury or sickness (actually or virtually) then there is not contraception properly speaking.

In other words, contraception is a means or a method which is applied to the man or the woman⁴⁹ to make a conjugal act infertile. Simply using marriage when it will be infertile when such infertility is insisted upon as a condition for the act is not a means applied to make a conjugal act infertile; this would amount to saying that the act was used upon itself – an absurdity. ⁴⁹ Or, one might say it is a means applied to the gametes of the man or the woman, even if applied through affecting an organ of the man or the woman.

Caia, the wife of Caius and of infirm health, heard from a physician that at her next delivery the next offspring would very probably be death to her. Hence she was placed in distress, for she does not wish to deny the debt to her husband, but if she grants it, she will bring death upon herself. Therefore she goes to a physician of certainly not the best reputation and buys a medicine by which, taken once each month, she will be rendered safe, as the physician says, from the danger of future offspring. An outcome happy from her point of view proves the physician’s knowledge, but nevertheless also casts scruples into Caia as to whether it is lawful to take such a medicine, and she approaches her confessor to resolve them. Hence it is asked:

1. How are the direct and indirect killing of a human being distinguished? And is it lawful to kill an innocent person?

2. In a case in which either the mother or the fetus or both are certainly going to perish, is it ever lawful to procure abortion? Even of an inanimate fetus?

3. What is to be said of the case?

1. How is direct distinguished from indirect homicide, and is it ever allowable to kill the innocent? Homicide is direct when it is intended, and it may be intended either explicitly or implicitly. It is intended explicitly when the homicide wishes to cause death; it is intended implicitly when an action is intentionally put which can not but cause death. Thus one would directly cause death who kept another under water for some time, though his primary intention might have been not to kill him, but to prevent him from calling out. On the other hand, homicide is indirect when it is not intended, though it is foreseen that it will follow from some act which is put for another purpose. It is never allowed to kill the innocent directly; it is allowed to do so indirectly, for a great and proportionate cause.

2. In a case where either the mother or the fetus, or both, must necessarily perish, is it allowable to procure abortion at least, if the fetus has as yet no soul?

Following the common opinion, we may put aside, as antiquated, the hypothesis of a living fetus not yet informed by a human soul. The human soul is infused into the fetus at the moment of conception, according to the common opinion. The answer, then, to the question proposed will be that it is never allowed to procure abortion of the immature fetus directly, since it is never allowed to kill the innocent directly. If the fetus, though not quite mature, may probably be saved, as it may be after about the seventh month or even earlier, by artificial means, it will be lawful to bring it to the birth for a reason grave in proportion to the danger incurred. Indirect abortion, like indirect killing of the innocent, is allowable for a sufficiently grave reason.

3. The case. Caia did wrong in taking medicine to prevent having another child. If the medicine acted so as to prevent conception, she sinned mortally; for as St. Alphonsus teaches (III, no. 394): “It is never lawful for a mother, on account of any danger whatsoever, to take a potion to impede conception.” If the medicine acted on the fetus after conception, Caia was guilty of infanticide. Her confessor should tell her that she is justified in refusing her husband, supposing the danger to life to be real, but that she may also allow him marital rights and commit herself to God’s providence. The latter course may be adopted with greater security than the advice of some doctors would lead one to suppose.¹

1 See Génicot, Theol. Mor., vol. ii, nn. 551, 553.

Caius, a confessor, asks what he must do in the following case. Titia, the wife of Titius, whom Caius knew well as parishioners, approached confession. After the confession was completed, Titia asked whether marital intercourse was lawful without the husband duly completing the act. When Caius denied it, Titia replied that her husband affirmed it, and indeed often acted thus on a physician’s advice because of the weak powers of his wife, who was less capable of bearing and nursing a child. Caius was then silent, but the difficulty increased when Titius soon approached confession and nevertheless said not a word about the matter badly conducted with his wife. Hence it is asked:

1. Is it established that onanism is a sin, and what kind?

2. What advice must be given to wives anxious about onanism committed by their husbands?

3. Must penitents established in good faith be warned about things badly done by them?

4. What is to be said of the case?

1. Is it certain that onanism is a sin and what sort?

From the way in which Holy Scripture mentions it (Gen. xxxviii. 9), from the teaching of the Church, and because it is a gross perversion of nature, it is certain that onanism is a grave sin.¹

1 Manual of Moral Theology, vol. ii, 363.

2. What advice is to be given to wives anxious about onanism committed by their husbands?

They are to be admonished to do what lies in their power so that their husbands complete the act in the proper manner, and if they do not succeed, let them not approve the manner, and let them lawfully cooperate only materially in the sins of their husbands.²

2 Ibid., 363.

3. Are penitents to be admonished who in good faith do what is wrong?

They must be admonished if what they do is a cause of public scandal, or if their good faith is not perfect and they are doubtful about the matter. They must be admonished also if in all likelihood they would obey the admonition. If the admonition would be productive of more harm than good it should not be given.³

3 Ibid., 223.

4. To the case. Although good faith regarding the licitness of onanism is not altogether impossible even among Catholics, yet it can scarcely endure for a long time. For bishops and priests, and even upright laymen, are accustomed to condemn that crime in clear words and writings. When therefore Titius comes to confess, yet he says nothing about onanism, Caius should interrogate him with general words whether he has anything that torments his conscience, or something similar. If Titius denies it, it seems that Caius may be able to acquiesce and grant absolution. For the penitent is to be believed whether speaking for himself or against himself. Nor is Caius permitted to reveal what he heard from Titia’s confession. But if Titia again makes mention of the matter brings it up, Caius must say openly that the matter is altogether unlawful, Titia should do what she can to correct the husband, and if nothing succeeds, she may be able to offer material cooperation to the act which she is unable to hinder. As for the dangers to health or even life, which physicians sometimes exaggerate let Titia entrust herself to God.¹

1 Bucceroni, TheoL Moral., vol. ii, n. 824; Génicot, vol. ii, n. 551.

This unnatural sin which so greatly desecrates the sacredness of wedlock, unfortunately is becoming more frequent, and is propagating itself by word and print even among those circles where hitherto these vices were unknown. Hence the necessity of discussing this matter. We desire to restrict ourselves to a brief statement of principles without going into the matter too closely.

^* By W. Stentrup, S.J.

1. All moralists are unanimous in condemning this sin as one of the most grievous which can be committed in married life; and this applies to every attempt to prevent conception in the cohabitation, be it with or without the use of contrivances. There is the difference to be kept in mind that in the first instance the wife after earnest remonstrance with the husband suppositis supponendis may be permissive; in the second instance, with contrivances, this is forbidden absolutely. The use of contrivances rendering any conceptio impossible causes the act to be unlawful from the beginning, and therefore intrinsecus malus. Co-operation with the same, even if only material, is so intimately allied and so necessary to the sinful act, that it can never be permitted, except in the most extreme case, as some theologians even allow the maiden in the extreme case to escape by purely passive sufferance a threatened death. When, therefore, the Roman Penitentiary decided that a wife be allowed for weighty reasons, and after previous exhortation of the husband, to render the conjugal duty under such conditions, it is always to be understood only in the first sense, as then the act in the beginning is legitimate and becomes an abuse of marriage only through the husband's fault. Indeed, for important reasons, under the same conditions the wife may even claim her conjugal rights; her right is incontestable, and with regard to her husband's sin she remains disapproving and purely permissive.

2. We shall now view the matter in its direct relation to the confessor. There are these three possibilities:

(a) A penitent either does not mention the sin at all, or (b) he inquires about its nature and gravity, or (c) he confesses the same as a grievous sin.

(a) If the penitent says nothing in regard to this sin and the confessor has no reason to suspect it, he must not put any questions. If, however, he has reason to believe the penitent enmeshed in this sin, and at that without bona fides, it is evident that he is bound in conscience to clear up the case by prudent questioning; otherwise he would seriously fail in his office as judge in the tribunal of Penance. Should he, however, judge the penitent to be in bona fide, then the answer of the Sacred Penitentiary of the 10th of March, 1886, may serve as his guide. The question in this instance was asked in order to remove a doubt remaining after a previous answer, and to bring about among confessors a uniformity of procedure. The question was originally put as follows: When there is a well-founded suspicion that a penitent who says absolutely nothing about onanism is addicted to this crime, may the confessor refrain from prudent and discreet questioning because he foresees that many will be disturbed in their good faith and that many will abandon the Sacraments? Or is the confessor not rather bound to question prudently and discreetly? The Sacred Penitentiary, considering that the unspeakable vice in question has become widespread, judged that the proposed doubts should be answered, as it answers: As a rule, negatively to the first part; affirmatively to the second part.

The Sacred Penitentiary prescribes therewith plainly the proper procedure, and states the reason: considering that the unspeakable vice has become widespread.

But we must not overlook the word "regulariter." Ordinarily we must follow the given instructions; an exception is however not excluded, and is really bona fides present, if the warning promises no result and if the omission of the warning is not likely to have evil consequences, then there applies to this matter what moralists teach in relation to other matters.

(b) If the confessor is consulted about the sin and about its gravity he must give a truthful and clear answer, otherwise he will become accessory to another's sin.

(c) What if the sin is properly confessed? In this connection the following case is brought to our attention: A woman has confessed this sin and to the remonstrance of the confessor she replies: "My husband and I confessed the sin to a missionary and he said nothing about it. My husband's regular confessor likewise never said anything about it, hence we concluded that the matter was not so very serious " What is to be said about the action of these confessors?

In answering this question we return to the above-mentioned reply of the Penitentiary. The matter was again submitted in the following form:

Whether a confessor who learns, either from a spontaneous confession or from prudent questioning, that the penitent is an onanist is bound to admonish him about the gravity of this sin just as about other mortal sins, and, as the Roman Ritual says, to reprove him with paternal charity and to impart absolution only when it is established by sufficient signs that he is sorry for the past and has the purpose of no longer acting onanistically. The answer is: Affirmative, according to the teachings of approved authors.

Our authorities, it is true, do not demand that the confessor must exhort the penitent in the case of each individual sin properly confessed, and that He assure himself expressly about contrition and resolution in the case of each of them; but they do demand unanimously the truly probable (morally certain) determination of the penitent's disposition. For this reason they require a special treatment of habitual sinners and of relapsers. If in our matter the penitent belongs to one of these classes, which is generally the case, then the confessor must satisfy himself concerning contrition and resolutions in regard to this particular offense. We will not deny that there may be individual cases, in which the confessor is morally certain as to the disposition of the penitent, and fears by citing this special sin, not fully realized by the penitent to be a grievous sin, to shake his good resolution present, and make it doubtful. Prudence will then counsel him to avoid the temptation which a specification of this sin would be for the frail sinner. As a matter of course the penitent must by no means be given the false impression, through the confessor, that his action be no sin, or not a grievous sin.

It often seems to us that if we would take a firmer stand for the law of God, with more confidence and greater apostolic candor, it would be also of great benefit in this matter. Of course we must not impose what is not an actual obligation; but, in an evident violation of the divine commandments, to beat about the bush will give the impression as if it were man's law and not God's law, which paralyzes the authority of God's representatives, and disturbs in the penitent the supernatural idea.

Unfortunately physicians only too often are our opponents in this matter, and by their professional advice they make things exceedingly difficult for us. Then let us tell the penitent: "It is God's commandment; the observing of the same in this case may be hard and a great sacrifice, but God promises grace and heaven 'to those who obey.' " In short: Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re.

THE recently issued Report of the British National Birth-rate Commission on the declining birth-rate contains much that is of great interest to Catholics, and especially to the clergy. It is very plain-spoken indeed on certain sexual matters which have suffered somewhat in the past from a conspiracy of silence. Just now the pendulum seems to be swinging in the opposite direction, and excess of plain speaking threatens to produce greater evils than ever silence produced. Very difficult and delicate problems connected with sex morality are being openly discussed in the daily and weekly press, and the public are invited to form their own opinions on the questions raised. The writers know well on which side popular sentiment is likely to be found, and naturally they adopt a tone and maintain views which will be acceptable to the majority of their readers. The questions certainly are of the greatest importance, and should be treated somewhere. That is my reason for offering this contribution to the Ecclesiastical Review, which addresses itself to an exclusive circle—that is, to priests, whose influence in matters of this kind is likely to be effective for good.

The above-mentioned Report corroborates what was well known already, that the birth-rate of England and Wales has declined by about one-third during the last forty years. It is still declining, and in all probability we have not touched bottom yet by any means. Some authorities profess to find matter for satisfaction in this fact. Dr. Havelock Ellis has publicly reproved the " panic-stricken fanatics " who preach to the people that the birth-rate is falling and the nation is decaying. The first witness examined by the Commission was Dr. C. V. Drysdale, the Secretary of the Malthusian League. Dr. Drysdale took the opportunity to say something about the Malthusian League, which he represented, and of which he is the Secretary. He told the Commission that the League has carried on a propaganda in favour of family restriction ever since the Bradlaugh and Besant trial in 1876; the time at which the birth-rate began to decline in England and Wales. The central principle of the Neo-Malthusian movement is the doctrine of Malthus, that unrestricted reproduction inevitably leads to pressure upon subsistence, with its consequences — poverty, starvation, prostitution, disease, and war. At first, English Neo-Malthusians confined their operations to expositions of the economic, moral, and eugenic aspects of the population question. Until 1913 they refused to give information concerning preventive devices. In that year, however, says Dr. Drysdale, "following upon recent authoritative medical pronouncements, in favour of such devices, the League has instituted a practical propaganda, with special precautions against abuse." He gives a descriptive definition of Neo-Malthusianism which embodies the principles to which the League has constantly adhered:

" Neo-Malthusianism is an ethical doctrine based on the principle of Malthus, that poverty, disease, and premature death can only be eliminated by control of reproduction, combined with a recognition of the evils inseparable from prolonged abstention from marriage. It, therefore, advocates nearly universal early marriage, together with a selective limitation of offspring to those children to whom the parents can give a satisfactory heredity and environment, so that they may become desirable members of the community. It further maintains that a universal knowledge of hygienic contraceptive devices among adult men and women would in all probability automatically lead to such a selection through enlightened self-interest, and thus to the elimination of destitution and all the more serious social evils, and to the elevation of the race."

Open-air campaigns have been held to disseminate these views in the large towns, and a pamphlet is being distributed gratuitously describing the most hygienic methods of limiting families. The ordinary layman can hardly be expected to form a sound judgment on these important questions when they are proposed to him in that guise. It makes one thank God devoutly for the guidance which the Church gives us, and it makes us realize the necessity of that guidance.

I do not wish to suggest that the Neo-Malthusian League is alone responsible for the decline in the birth-rate. It is clear from the Report that direct procuring of abortion, and venereal diseases, such as gonorrhoea and syphilis, are largely responsible as well. The Neo-Malthusians deplore these causes, as all sensible men must do. Nor are they alone in their advocacy of such preventive devices as they consider harmless. The Report acknowledges that "among conscientious and high-minded laymen and women in the Anglican Church there are many who openly justify the use of preventives," and this attitude has become far more common during the last few years (page 64). The Report further adds:

" We regret that we are unable to present a definite pronouncement as to the physical consequences of the use of these devices. The printed evidence which follows does not enable a dogmatic statement to be made as to these; and in view of the fact that medical investigation on this subject is difficult and in large measure has only recently been made, it is not surprising that no definite medical conclusion can be drawn" (page 57).

Twenty-four of the Commissioners signed an Addition to the Report which, among other things, acknowledges that there are some questions " which deserve more thorough and general consideration than we have been able to give to them." Among these is the following: " Is any mode of restriction except voluntary abstinence from marital relations moral and religious?" There seems to be a general consensus of opinion that there is one other lawful mode of restriction besides voluntary abstinence from marital relations. Married couples may, if they like, limit intercourse to the inter-menstrual periods, when conception is less likely to take place. The Anglican Bishop of Southwark, in his evidence given before the Commission, expressed the opinion that this practice is unlawful. He failed, however, to substantiate his view, and it is opposed to the Memorandum drawn up by a Committee of Anglican Bishops and endorsed by a majority of their number. Medical authorities are not agreed as to whether the practice is likely to be effectual in preventing conception, but there seems to be no valid reason against it from the point of view of moral theology. I do not propose to discuss this question further. Catholic moral theology clearly condemns the use of all anti-conceptional methods by married people who use their marital rights. There is a more heinous malice in the voluntary procuring of abortion after conception than in the use of anti-conceptive devices. Some anti-conceptive devices are more injurious than others. But there are none that are not immoral and wrong, according to the teaching of Catholic moral theology. Can this be shown by reasons that will appeal to the ordinary man or woman of sound common sense? That is what I want to show in this paper.

I have already referred to the article contributed to an English weekly newspaper by Dr. Havelock Ellis. He is of considerable standing in the world of science, and so his views are of interest to us. He maintains that small families and a falling birth-rate are not only not evil, but that they are a positive good. They represent an evolutionary rise in nature and a higher stage in civilization. It is the lower forms of animals that are most prolific and the higher forms that are less so. Vast quantities of lower forms of life are born, but natural selection, by its rough methods, takes care that only the fittest should survive. In the higher forms of animal life quality takes the place of quantity. The elephant has far fewer offspring than the herring, but it more than makes up for the difference by greater parental care. This evolutionary process becomes conscious and deliberate in man without ceasing to be natural. We will here give his own words:

" It is, then, that we have what may properly be termed Birth Control. That is to say, that a process which had before been working steadily through the ages, attaining every new forward step with waste and pain, is henceforth carried out voluntarily in the light of the high human qualities of reason and foresight and self-restraint."

This statement seems to be in direct opposition to fact. The natural process kills off the unfit in the struggle for life, and so only the fittest survive. A couple who use preventive devices use an unnatural process without the means of knowing what the result is to be. Of the possible children that they might have had, the two or three that are born may very possibly be the weakest and the least gifted by nature. At any rate the parents can exert no choice as to the quality. They can indeed limit the quantity by restrictive devices, but if we follow the teaching of experience the two or three children are as likely as not to be spoiled by over-indulgence and by having all the hardships of life removed out of their path. The best and the strongest characters, as a rule, are developed in the bosom of large families, which preclude pampering and necessitate a certain simplicity of life. It is a mere abuse of language to speak of the use of preventives as the employment of reason, foresight, and self-restraint. It is irrational, blind, and the absence of all restraint.

It is difficult to understand how Dr. Havelock Ellis could possibly maintain that a falling birth-rate is not an evil but a positive good. A people living in simple conditions of life without rivals or powerful neighbours to fear might perhaps be satisfied if the birth-rate and death-rate more or less balanced. There would be no great cause for alarm if such a balance of births and deaths were the effect of natural causes. But those are not the conditions of the problem before us. There is a keen rivalry among the great nations of the world, and the declining birth-rate among the chief European nations is largely due to preventive devices. The process has been going on in France for something like two centuries, and France furnishes our great object-lesson of its effect on national welfare. In the seventeenth century France was the acknowledged leader among the nations of Europe. At that time her population was 38 per cent, of the total population of the chief European nations. At the end of the eighteenth century it had fallen to 27 per cent. In 1815 it was 20 per cent.; in 1880 it was 13 per cent., and now it is about 11 per cent. Instead of being the most populous nation of Europe, France now takes the sixth or seventh place. It is patent to everyone what this has meant in the Great War. Man for man, the Frenchman believes himself superior to the German, but the forty millions of France are no match in arms against the sixty-five millions of Germany. Quantity of population undoubtedly is a factor of great influence on national welfare, and a declining birth-rate can only be viewed with alarm by a true and far-sighted patriot.

Moral turpitude cannot be gauged by the physically evil effects which follow from it, and can be verified. An evil desire to commit adultery does not entail the physical and verifiable evils that follow from actual adultery. And yet "Whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her hath already committed adultery with her in his heart.” The moral turpitude of an evil desire is the same in kind as that of the evil act itself. The ancient Romans used emetics after one dinner in order to be able to enjoy the pleasures of a second and third on the same day. The physically evil effects of the practice were perhaps not very serious if it was not indulged in too frequently. There are few that would not allow that such an action is disgusting, unnatural, and inordinate. It is immoral and wrong apart from any physically evil effects that it may have. If it were indulged in very frequently it would lead to a permanent derangement in the action of the stomach. These principles are applicable in a special degree to sexual excesses. In the natural use of marriage a legitimate outlet is provided for the strongest of the instincts and appetites of mankind. A sense of satisfaction follows upon the use of marital rights. There may be intemperance in such use, and intemperance will be the cause of physical evil, more or less serious. But the temperate use is accompanied with satisfaction, and after a time leads to a gradual weakening of the sexual appetite. This is not true of the abuse of the sexual appetite. Let us take a well-known example which has been studied by theologians and by medical men for centuries. A solitary act or two of self-abuse may not have any serious physical evil as its consequence. But if constantly repeated, it destroys health of body and of mind. It is generally accompanied by some physical pleasure, but it does not give complete satisfaction. This leads to a constant temptation to repeat the act, repetition leads to a strengthening of the habit and the craving for indulgence, and the yielding to this leads to a gradual weakening of self-control, and to the ruin of health of mind and body. This is the rational argument by which theologians defend and illustrate their teaching concerning the deadly malice of one sin of self-abuse.

When preventive devices are used in sexual intercourse there is self-abuse and abuse of the other party as well. The act is satisfying for neither of them except for the moment; an appetite is created, not satisfied, and the natural consequences of self-abuse follow for both to a greater or less extent. There are not the same facilities for over-indulgence, and so the evil effects of the practice are not so rapid and conspicuous, but in a measure they are there. This is fully borne out by the first-hand experience of several of the medical witnesses examined by the Commission. Thus Dr. Amand Routh said:

"I have no doubt that prevention of maternity by artificial methods invariably produces physical, mental, and, I think, moral, harm to those who resort to it—to one, or probably to both.... I am sure it does harm to both, if they both agree to it. The act is incomplete; it is not a spontaneous act; and if the act ceases before the proper crisis, as it were, the nervous system suffers enormously if the habit is continued for long. And the result often is that there is a great deal of congestion produced in the woman, at all events. I know nothing about the physical results in the case of the man, but in the woman the result is that the pelvic organs become congested and catarrhal, the womb becomes enlarged, and the result is that later on, when the parents are perhaps better off and want a child, they are not able to have one " (page 247).

The Chairman, the Very Rev. Dean Inge, put a question to the witness on this subject. He asked: " You say in your lecture, ' Every method of artificial prevention of conception is harmful in both its physical and moral effect.' That is, of course, by no means universally admitted, is it? It is a matter of very great importance to this Commission." Dr. Routh answered:

"Well, personally, I believe that every artificial method does do physical harm, with the only exception that supposing the husband uses letters, for instance, I do not think the harm is very much to the wife, except that she misses the stimulating effect of the semen itself. And there is not the least doubt that that has a very powerful effect; it is absorbed to a certain extent, and seems to stimulate and even to nourish the woman in a way which we do not at present understand." " I think," pursued Dr. Inge, " it will be generally admitted, as far as I can make out, that withdrawal is mischievous; but we have been told that the use of these other things which you mention is harmless to both sexes. That is what I want to get at." Dr. Routh replied:

"Well, I am sure that people who use letters suffer from it in time. It is not the same thing. It is difficult to explain how it does act, but I am only speaking of practical experience with one's patients who have adopted these methods. To begin with, supposing that both the man and the woman are very much averse to having a child. It is not a normally conducted physiological act at all; it is an act accompanied more or less by fear the whole time, and the nervous system cannot stand being, thus, in anything rather than the passive attitude of affection which ought to exist."

Asked if that effect was not mental rather than physical, the witness replied: " It is mental, but it has a physical effect. You cannot have the nervous system in this state of dread without a physical effect."

A further question was put: "You would agree, I take it, that there is a difference of opinion among experienced gynecologists on this point, as to the deleterious physical effects of the use of these artificial means?" To which Dr. Routh replied: " I thought everybody considered they were more or less harmful" (page 254). Another witness of experience, Dr. Mary Scharlieb, was asked: " Are you of opinion that injury does result from the use of these preventives?”

To which she replied: " No physical injury. In the majority of cases they cannot do physical harm to anyone. From the use by the wife of a douche or a quinine pessary, or from the use by the husband of a sheath, I do not see that any physical injury results, but I am sure there are recondite effects upon the nervous system."

To the question: " Having regard to hysteria and allied diseases, would you not agree that although physical injury may not be present, yet nevertheless serious injury does arise?" The witness replied, "Certainly" (page 271).

When, therefore, the Commissioners express regret in their Report that they are unable to present a definite pronouncement as to the physical consequences of the use of preventive devices, we may presume that they use the word " physical " in a restricted sense as distinguished from nervous and mental evils. Catholic writers on Pastoral Theology have long insisted on the grievous harm done to body and mind by the use of preventive devices. An increase of fornication, too, is said to take place when the fear of offspring is removed by the use of preventive methods.

Clement of Alexandria lived at a time of great moral depravity, and Alexandria was probably as bad as any other city of the Roman Empire. He was acquainted with all the learning of his time, and especially was he a keen student of human nature. In an interesting passage he tells us that defilement of the marriage bed leads to loss of mutual respect and of conjugal love. I will finish my article by a translation of a few sentences:

" It is not shameful for us to mention for the instruction of our hearers the parts in which the conception of the fœtus takes place and which God was not ashamed to make.... Now, marriage is the desire for the procreation of children, not the inordinate effusion of seed, which is contrary to precept and against right reason. The whole of our life will proceed according to nature if, from the beginning, we curb our appetites and do not destroy by wicked and malicious devices the race of mankind which is born of divine providence. For those women who, to conceal fornication, use destructive drugs, which lead to utter ruin, lose all humanity, together with the fœtus.... If uprightness should be practised, much more should uprightness be shown toward your wife by avoiding intercourse which is not upright; and let there be trustworthy evidence coming from your home that you deal chastely with your neighbours. For nothing can be deemed upright by her with whom uprightness in those vehement pleasures is not proved by irrefragable evidence, as it were. The love which rushes headlong toward intercourse lasts but a short time and grows old with the body; sometimes it grows old even before the body, since lust becomes torpid when whorish lusts have vitiated the temperance of marriage. For the hearts of lovers are winged, and the impulses of love are often extinguished in repentance, and love often turns to hate when satiety has felt reproof."*

* Pædagogus, ii. 10.

ABOUT a dozen years ago the National Council of Public Morals with official recognition established the National Birth-Rate Commission. Since then the Commission has issued several Reports, and a Special Commission was appointed to study the ethical side of the question. This Special Commission has now issued its Report under the title of The Ethics of Birth Control. This Report professes to adopt the Christian standpoint with regard to human life and its responsibilities. But for all that it is not able to announce any definite conclusions as to the morality or immorality of birth control. The subject, it says, needs much further investigation from the medical, economic, and religious point of view. In the meantime, no one can escape the personal responsibility of forming his own judgement on the question.

Four members of the Special Commission declared it to be their opinion that the use of contraceptives is a frustration of God’s design in Nature and cannot be justified in any circumstances, but this opinion was rejected by the majority of the Special Commission, and in a leading article on the subject, The Times newspaper endorsed the rejection. In support of this rejection it is said that civilization itself has been the story of man’s control over Nature, and that rigid application of the principle advocated by the four members would entail the condemnation of all medical treatment. Medicine tries to arrest natural processes; it is an interference with Nature, an action against Nature.

Nevertheless, the principle adopted by the four members is a fundamental principle of Christian ethics, and if it is properly understood it does not involve the absurd consequences attributed to it. I will try briefly to show this.

Everybody knows that the reign of law is universal. We live in an ordered world. The physical and animal world are governed by necessary laws. The same causes are always followed by the same effects, and nothing else is possible. According to Christian teaching, the whole world inferior to man was created for man’s use and benefit. In the beginning the Creator told man to rule and subdue the earth and everything that it contains. Man can subdue and control the physical world by learning to understand its laws, and in doing this for his own benefit he not only does nothing morally wrong, but he is fulfilling the intention of his Creator. When the doctor, then, destroys the germs of tubercular disease, he not only does nothing morally wrong, he performs an action which in the highest degree is a moral action. He acts against Nature, contrary to Nature, in that he interferes with a natural process which threatens human life, but it is morally right for him to do that.

The reign of law extends to the sphere of human conduct. Certain actions are in accordance with moral law, others are contrary to it. Those actions which are in accordance with moral law are called right, ordinate, lawful; those that are contrary to it are called wrong, inordinate, unlawful. By considering an action in itself and in all its circumstances we can generally see quite clearly whether it is in accordance with moral law and right, or whether, on the contrary, it is against the moral law and wrong. It is clearly right for children to love, respect, and obey their parents, to render to every man what is his due, to wish well to all men, to practise temperance. It is clearly wrong for children to show disrespect to parents, to do unjust injury to others, to show hatred to one’s fellow-man, to give way to intemperance in eating and drinking. We can discern the rule or law of temperance by considering the object of eating and drinking, the purpose which those actions should serve. Eating and drinking are for the sake of supporting life. The body derives heat and energy from food and drink, and bodily waste is repaired thereby. The end of eating and drinking indicates the rule which ought to govern those actions. We should eat and drink what supports life. We should abstain from what injures or destroys life. We should eat and drink that quantity which is suitable for the end in view. If we eat or drink more or less than what conduces to our support we infringe the law of temperance, we act against the moral law, we are bound to preserve our life and to take the necessary means to do so.

We are bound to do what is right and abstain from what is wrong because our Creator and Lord wishes and commands it. He is the Author of the moral law, and because he is good and holy he cannot possibly be indifferent as to whether it is observed or not by his rational creatures. Man is not only a rational creature, he is also endowed with moral freedom. He can recognize the moral law, but, unlike the lower creation, he is not necessitated to obey it. He has the physical power of obeying it if he chooses to do so, but he has also the physical power to refuse obedience to it if he chooses. He can violate the law of temperance if he likes, but he will do so at his peril and to his ruin. What has been said about eating and drinking may be applied to the procreation of children. The means to that end are laid down by Nature and by the Author of Nature. In making use of the means the end furnishes the rule, and it must always be kept in sight so that nothing contrary to it may be done. If we forget the rule of temperance and follow appetite and pleasure in eating and drinking, we are sure to go astray. We shall eat and drink too much, we shall act inordinately, and we shall frustrate God’s design in Nature. Not less evidently and surely will they who use contraceptives act inordinately, violate the moral law, and frustrate God’s design in Nature. We heartily agree, then, with the four members of the Special Commission. They defended a great and important principle of the moral law.