CNN’s Piers Morgan asked Penn Jillette, author of Every Day is an Atheist Holiday, what he thought of the pope’s resignation. His response?
“I think I may be somebody who believes in the Pope’s position more than most Catholics. . . . if you have someone who is a conduit to God and is speaking God’s word, even if you can’t understand exactly what God’s plan is . . . that still doesn’t mean you get to vote on what God actually believes.”
March 7th, 2013 | 2:29 pm
As I was listening to Morgan, I was nitpicking his arguments in my head, thinking of all these technical rebuttals, but to a general audience, I wouldn’t have been half as persuasive as Jillette. It takes someone from outside the Catholic bubble to get to the heart of the matter.
March 7th, 2013 | 2:45 pm
Wow! Who woulda thunk it? An atheist who is more orthodox than most Catholics in the USA today. He really gets that “if this is true” (his thought on it) that it is not a democracy and you don’t get to vote on what truth is.
Thou art close to the kingdom, Penn. You shall have prayer from me.
March 7th, 2013 | 3:57 pm
He’s shown this admirable trait before, and it has to do with “following where the evidence leads” + “if you’re going to believe, then for Pete’s sake (no pun intended) do so!”
For and until now, the evidence has led Mr. Jillette to where is, well … now. But he follows it. Indeed, he is close to the Kingdom, and closer than many others.
March 7th, 2013 | 4:37 pm
Hmmm…haven´t you considered this may be a way of reductio ad absurdum?
March 7th, 2013 | 4:53 pm
I think Piers Morgan is incorrect in saying that because of the Church’s position on contraception, a pope cannot say that if condoms are used as a barrier to disease, they are acceptable. We know from Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, head of the Vatican’s Council for Health Pastoral Care, that VCHPC undertook a study commissioned by the pope on the use of condoms by serodiscordant married couples (that is, couples in which one spouse was infected with HIV and the other not). “The study, which Barragan at the time said was carried out from both a scientific and moral point of view, had been passed on to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and would eventually be passed up the Pope for his use as he saw fit in a document of his own or a pronouncement.” After the study reached Benedict XVI, there was no further mention of it.
There are good arguments that condoms used as barriers to disease transmission in already licit sex acts are morally permissible by the principle of double effect. The intention is to stop a virus, not to stop sperm.
Some believe that the Church has said nothing about the report because the conclusion was that in the circumstances studied, condoms were effective, and convincing arguments were made that in these very special circumstances, condom use is licit. But the Vatican (the theory goes) does not wish to announce those findings for fear people would mistakenly believe—because of the way it might be reported in the media—that the Church was contradicting itself and relaxing its ban on condoms and contraception. If that is indeed the case, it is unfortunate.
March 7th, 2013 | 6:14 pm
It might be interesting for someone to do a comparison between the goal and effect of the Catholic teaching on marriage and procreation, and the teaching of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (“Mormons”). If the goal is to maximize the number of children that husband and wife bring into the world, the Mormon approach is much more successful, at least in the US, where Mormons have more children per family than Catholics, who are pretty much on par with the rest of the country. The Mormon approach condemns abortion, except in extreme and rare circumstances, but it does not proscribe birth control. However, the Mormon teaching is that the plan of God the Father includes the bringing of his already living spirit children into the mortal realm, where they will join their parents in an eternal family that will continue through eternity, sealed together and unified through immortal marriage and parent-child relationships through their ancestors, eventually to Adam. It is common for Mormon families to have four or five children, and not uncommon to have more.
March 7th, 2013 | 6:21 pm
David, you may be right about that, but you’re arguing from the basis of orthodox Catholic doctrine. Morgan is arguing that the Church should “move with the times” because “young Catholics” are “disgruntled,” and so forth.
A Catholic can legitimately draw distinctions or attempt to resolve perceived contradictions by drawing on Thomistic principles such as that of double effect. A Catholic cannot legitimately appeal to popular opinion, which is what Morgan does here. Nor can he appeal to a doctrine of sola scriptura, “Jesus didn’t say” this or that, as Morgan did, as well.
Morgan seems to think that, because distributing condoms in Africa seems to him a reasonable thing, the Church must allow it. He does not seem to attempt to actually work within the boundaries or use the tools of Catholic theology — as one might assume a Catholic person would want to do.
And what’s perhaps more irritating than his dissent on the subject of condoms for AIDS victims is the fact that he does not appear to understand the reasoning behind it, or want to. If he did, he would actually address it, instead of appealing to popular opinion and what seems reasonable to him.
March 8th, 2013 | 11:05 am
Sergio writes: “Hmmm…haven´t you considered this may be a way of reductio ad absurdum?”
It’s clear that Penn Jillette doesn’t believe and perhaps his conclusions as to what that entails are part of that. It is also clear that he appears to have a good idea of just what the belief entails. Perhaps that is foolishness to Greeks, but some of us are not Greek.
March 8th, 2013 | 2:46 pm
Raymond Takashi Swenson: “If the goal is to maximize the number of children that husband and wife bring into the world,…”
This is not the Catholic teaching on marriage and procreation; “to maximize” isn’t even a minor goal. But many children are considered a blessing – see Psalm 127:3-5.
March 8th, 2013 | 4:53 pm
David Nickol wrote:
“There are good arguments that condoms used as barriers to disease transmission in already licit sex acts are morally permissible by the principle of double effect. The intention is to stop a virus, not to stop sperm.”
This argument only gets off the ground if the act is *already* characterized as “uncontracepted vaginal intercourse”, so that condition 1 of the principle of doubt effect (PDE) is fulfilled. Yet contraception changes the nature of intercourse, regardless of the agents’ intentions (i.e. whether they are precluding the possibility of conception, precluding the possibility of STI transmission, or both). The proper description of the act in this case is “contracepted vaginal intercourse”. Since this act is illicit, the application of PDE cannot save it from moral censure on the traditionalist view: condition 1 has not been met.
Admittedly, everything hinges on the characterization of the act. Is barrier contraception the prevention of the possibility of conception or the prevention of the possibility of STI transmission? I say that both descriptions are true of the fertile couple who (barrier) contracepts their activity. For even if the couple aims only to prevent the possibility of STI transmission, not conception, it is *still* the case that the barrier acts to prevent the possiblity of conception. The couple cannot suppress this function of the condom by simply intending to use the barrier for another purpose (that would be like imagining that a coin only has one side by keeping the other surface out of view). By contrast, if a man who is unable to ejaculate uses a condom in vaginal intercourse, then there is no “foreseen but unintended’ effect to speak of, because there is no effect at all (I am not, however, judging this act morally permissible).
For a similar conclusion about act characterization, have a look…
March 8th, 2013 | 11:54 pm
oh my word. Penn understands what Piers Morgan is just too blind to see. Morgan may as well be atheist and Penn ..Catholic! Now if Penn could just explain this to other Catholics.
March 9th, 2013 | 10:07 am
@Clement,
A similar situation exists when a woman uses birth control pills for a non-contraceptive purpose, i.e. treating specific gynecological conditions or hormonal imbalance. Because there is no contraceptive intent, the Church considers such use licit, and does not require her to abstain from sex with her husband, as the resulting infertility is double-effect. It could be said that using condoms to protect one’s spouse from HIV could fall under the same principle.
March 9th, 2013 | 11:05 am
Penn assumes that Catholics have a relationship with Jesus Christ that’s personal, and that’s what he doesn’t believe in for himself. This is why he can tell us what we’d ought to believe if we had that kind of relationship. The problem is, of course, that most Catholics don’t have that kind of intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.
According to recent research, only about half of Catholics even believe it’s possible and “Catholic” to have that kind of relationship with Christ. This is why we have so many “catholics-in-name-only” and this is why so many Catholics leave the Church.
March 9th, 2013 | 12:53 pm
Excuse me, but do any of you actually know anything about Penn & Teller? Much of their “act” consists of mocking the Church, often in the most vile forms imaginable (when the Catholic League calls them on it they often have to redact the content as it is so offensive). Now, for the first time, this guy opens his mouth and manages to articulate the word “Catholic” without his tools-of-the-trade obscenities in the same sentence, and suddenly he’s G.K. Chesterton? I urge anyone hugging him here to read up on the phrase “Stockholm Syndrome” and maybe check more of Penn’s Catholic observations, starting here: http://townhall.com/columnists/brentbozell/2005/06/03/penn_and_teller_trash_mother_teresa
March 9th, 2013 | 1:02 pm
Mr. Nickol:
…and convincing arguments were made that in these very special circumstances, condom use is licit. But the Vatican (the theory goes) does not wish to announce those findings for fear people would mistakenly believe—because of the way it might be reported in the media—that the Church was contradicting itself and relaxing its ban on condoms and contraception.
Yes, much better to posit the Vatican hiding something than to face the simplest answer: that the arguments you found “convincing” were not at all convincing to Benedict XVI.
March 9th, 2013 | 3:18 pm
David:
Owing to the word limit, I was unable to post the link to a relevant article, which is John Schwenkler’s analysis of Michael Dummet’s take on pill use (http://www.academia.edu/332569/Michael_Dummett_on_the_Morality_of_Contraception). Schwenkler convincingly argues that Dummet has mischaracterized the act of swallowing the pill.
As you know, for the principle of double effect to have force, the act itself must be morally permissible (i.e. good or neutral). Taking a birth control pill without the intent to prevent the possiblity of conception is not wrong in and of itself, as you point out, since the end in view is to regularize hormonal cycles or mitigate gynecological conditions. This situation is *not* analogous to vaginal intercouse with a condom to prevent the possiblity of STI transmission. Why? Because the act in question is not putting on a condom (which is not wrong in and of itself), but is contracepted sex.
The problem here is that 1) you are treating condom contraception and vaginal intercourse as two seperate acts, which can be examined seperately in the moral analysis, and 2) you think the condom’s effect of preventing the possiblity of STI transmission is like pill’s effect of regularizing hormonal cycles or mitigating gynecological conditions. These are mistaken assumptions, which allow condition 2 of the PDE to be collapsed into condition 1. First, vaginal intercourse with a condom just *is* contracepted sex. There are not two things happening here, the sex and the condom contraception, but just one act. Second, the pill can be used outside of sexual intercourse, but the condom cannot. It is in the very nature of the condom that it prevents the possiblity of insemination and/or STI transmission *during* intercourse.
March 9th, 2013 | 3:46 pm
Clement Ng,
From Humanae Vitae:
I wonder, first, about an infertile married couple. Say the wife has had a (medically necessary) hysterectomy or is past her childbearing years. There can be no question of doing anything “specifically intended to prevent procreation,” since procreation is impossible. Also suppose there is a serodiscordant fertile married couple who use condoms to prevent HIV transmission who sincerely want children or who in fact are attempting to conceive. How could they possibly be accused of intending to prevent procreation?
I suppose an argument could be made that even between married couples where an intention to prevent conception can be definitively ruled out, use of condoms would be illicit. But it wouldn’t be because of contraception. I have seen the argument that sexual intercourse with a condom isn’t sexual intercourse at all, but rather masturbation. And yet there are at least two instances I can think of in which Catholic bioethicists approve of intercourse with a punctured condom. If intercourse using a condom is masturbation, I don’t see how puncturing the condom would change that.
March 9th, 2013 | 10:03 pm
Cutting through all the theology, Mr. Jillette is saying something very simple. The Human Rights Campaign, NOW, Sean Penn and George Clooney, PlannedBarreness, and the whole leftist alphabet, including the DOJ and the HHS, have neither theological nor constitutional standing to oppress the Catholic Church with simple-minded secularism and tolerance. Mr.Jillette by his own admission has called himself a libertarian — he seems to be consistent here. He doesn’t subscribe to the soft fascism of institutional tolerance and “coexistence.” We are in yet another shameful chapter of American history but this time there is no institutional or civic succour. Not even the Church seems to understand where we are. There’s the real source of despair.
March 10th, 2013 | 12:08 pm
Yes, much better to posit the Vatican hiding something than to face the simplest answer: that the arguments you found “convincing” were not at all convincing to Benedict XVI.
Jerry Beckett,
Then why didn’t Benedict just say so? Everyone who was paying attention knew there was a Vatican study of the use of condoms in serodiscordant married couples. The purpose of the study was twofold—to determine if condoms were effective in preventing HIV transmission under the circumstances, and to determine if their use by married couples was morally justifiable. Why not just release the results of the study? Any way you look at it, the Vatican is hiding something—the results of the study. What is the purpose of announcing publicly that a study is being done at the request of the pope, announcing that the study has been delivered to the pope, and then having the whole thing disappear from public discussion as if it had never happened?
March 10th, 2013 | 12:54 pm
Hi David. I agree that these two couples are not intending to avoid procreation through those means. The question for someone attempting to apply the PDE in these cases is what constitutes the acts and whether or not the acts are permissible (good or neutral). If vaginal intercourse with a condom is, by its nature, an impermissible act, then no application of PDE can save it. By contrast, the act of pill ingestion is distinct and separable from that of vaginal intercourse; a couple can do one without the other (a new natural lawyer might also add that pill ingestion is not contracepting unless the woman becomes sexually active, that it is not wrong to inhibit or delay ovulation if the woman is abstaining from intercourse).
Remember that the PDE is not a license to turn otherwise impermissible acts into permissible ones. Rather, it is only a ground to allow the foreseen but unintended bad effects of permissible acts, provided that the reason for allowance is sufficiently grave (condition 4).
Of course, the critic will rebut that vaginal intercourse is not, by its nature, impermissible. It is said to be acceptable if the intention is to prevent STI transmission, as opposed to insemination. This rebuttal is not a sound application of the PDE, however – it imports an interpretation of the intention into the characterization of the act, thereby collapsing condition 2 into condition 1.
Now I do not insist that acts are *always* characterizable apart from an interpretation of intentions. Rather, I claim that this is what the traditionalist argument amounts to in applying the PDE. Also, a punctured condom for collecting semen is really a condom in “name only” – if semen can pass through a needle sized hole, that is enough to allow for the possibility of conception.
March 10th, 2013 | 6:30 pm
Ok. Penn may not have the purest of motives but it’s possible he had a moment of grace.Regardless Piers had no clue and Penn pointed out a simple truth to him.
We have a discussion going on the question of condoms and HIV infection and Church teaching.I hope that some will read and contribute. We have quoted his holiness,Benedict the XVI.
http://cpandf.wall.fm/forum/topic/22#.UT0HHle_NJI
March 11th, 2013 | 10:56 am
Clement,
I have been enjoying this discussion very much, but my response to your latest message did not pass moderation. I can’t imagine why, so it doesn’t seem worthwhile to reconstruct it only to risk having it deleted again. I hope we can continue some other time or in some other place, because it seems to me that Martin Rhonheimer and Germain Grisez take two very different positions on this issue, and it would be interesting to explore that.
March 11th, 2013 | 9:28 pm
David:
I have enjoyed the philosophical/theological workout as well, and am interested in learning where Rhonheimer and Grisez might disagree. Attempts to apply the PDE are not straightforward, I admit – many ethicists, mostly utilitarians, find the principle contrived and useless, and those who do accept it often focus on intentions and effects alone, overlooking the necessity of fulfilling all four conditions.
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