Condoms, Sacrilege, and Surrender

Weekly Notes

Happy Friday, Friends. Thank you, as always, for reading my words and trusting me to answer your questions about the Faith. This week’s newsletter is free for all, just like every other Q&A that I do here, usually 3-4 times a month. I never put the Q&A’s behind a paywall, because I want you to be able to share these answers with people you know who may have questions about various aspects of Catholic teaching. This newsletter, more than anything, is meant to be a resource for you and people you love. So, please feel free to share them with anyone you know who is asking one of the questions I’m answering.

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Questions Box

Can a priest give permission to use condoms if my husband refuses to use NFP and miscarriage is likely.

First, I am so sorry you are experiencing recurring miscarriages. I’ve never been blessed with a pregnancy, but twice we agreed to adopt babies who ended up passing away between 12 and 16 weeks. We mourn those babies still, so I have an inkling of how much the loss of those little lives hurts.

Second, regarding your question, the short answer is no, a priest cannot give permission to use condoms as a form of contraception, no matter what the circumstances are. The Catholic Church teaches that contraceptive sex is gravely wrong, without exception. It frustrates God’s design for the body and for married love; confuses individuals and whole cultures about the nature and purpose of sex; facilitates spouses using each other instead of loving each other; encourages the mistreatment of women; and conditions people to see children as either choices or mistakes, not gifts. This has been the consistent teaching of the Church for 2,000 years, and no priest has the authority to change or bend or even tweak that teaching just a little bit. It’s not his teaching to change.

If a priest were to offer such advice, he would be guilty of false counsel, giving scandal, and leading another to sin. He would also be guilty of pastoral negligence. He would be neglecting to deal with the real problem at hand, which is your husband’s struggle, in this particular area, to love you as Christ loves the Church.

Let me back up a minute. I don’t know why you are experiencing frequent miscarriages. I do know you have an emotionally cruel and grueling cross to carry. I also know recurrent miscarriages can tax the body and come with potentially dangerous side effects. And I know that if you want to work with NaPro doctors to find out the reason for the miscarriages, some use of Natural Family Planning will be necessary. In situations like this, doctors need to see detailed charting of the woman’s cycles, and often they ask couples to abstain during fertile periods, both so they can get the most accurate hormone levels when testing and to ensure that the woman is not pregnant if surgery is necessary.

It’s possible you already know the cause of the miscarriages and have no hope of carrying a little one to term. Either way, I am sure your heart needs a break from such a cruel cycle of hope and loss. My guess is your body does too, regardless of whether doctors are involved and recommending one or not. Accordingly, the most loving thing your husband can do for you right now is give you that break. Not by using a condom, which are untrustworthy and failure prone. And most definitely not by involving you in a grave wrong and asking you to sin. That would not be loving at all. Rather, the loving thing to do is either abstain completely or practice Natural Family Planning and abstain during fertile periods. That’s what a husband loving his wife as Christ loved the Church looks like in this situation. It’s him laying down his desires for your good. It’s him sacrificing his wants for the sake of his bride.

I understand abstinence can be incredibly challenging. Chris and I have been there. But I also know that nobody has ever died for lack of sex. Again, it is a want, not a need. And it is wrong for your husband to prioritize his wants over your needs (not to mention God’s law). You are not asking him to fly. You’re asking him to not have sex for relatively short periods of time. That’s difficult. But it’s not impossible. God doesn’t ask the impossible of us. Lots and lots of normal, healthy men and women abstain from sex all the time. Some for short periods of time. Some for the whole of their lives. They are able to do this not because they don’t have a normal sex drive, but rather because they have worked hard to grow in virtue, particularly the virtue of chastity. This work is what your husband is being called to do right now.

Your husband is not alone  in this particular area. The Church calls all the baptized, not just single and religious people, to cultivate the virtue of chastity.  (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2348). This means all of us are called to the healthy integration of our sexuality into our whole experience of life. We’re called to be governed by our reason, not our passions, and always let the good of our souls and the good of others lead us.

As married persons, periodic abstinence is one of the ways we learn to do this. Abstinence is like strength training for our spiritual muscles. Whether it’s after the birth of a child, in times of illness, or when there is a serious and just reason to avoid pregnancy, abstinence calls us to grow in the virtues of temperance, fortitude, justice, and prudence. As we do that, we also learn how to properly order our sexual desires and truly love our spouse for who they are, not just for what needs of ours they can satisfy.

In other words, periodic abstinence can help prevent the very same problems contraception causes. If contraception makes it easier for spouses to use each other and women to be reduced to objects of male desire, periodic abstinence can do the opposite. It can help check the temptation for one spouse to use the other and protect wives from being reduced to objects. Periodic abstinence creates the space in which husbands and wives can learn to love each other better.

It also creates the space in which all of us can learn to love God better.

Frequent miscarriages are a horrible cross. But all crosses, this one included, are invitations to be conformed more closely to the One who hung on a cross for us. Your cross, right now, is offering that opportunity to you and your husband. It is offering you the chance to suffer with Christ. And it is offering you the chance to grow in virtue and become more like Him, who possessed every virtue in full perfection.

Your priest cannot give your husband permission to use a condom. But he can encourage him to take up his cross and walk with you through this present fire. He can help you do the same.

Again, I am sorry you are going through this. I know, at times, the Church’s prohibition of contraceptive sex can seem like such a horrible and hard teaching. The alternative—using contraception—can seem so much easier, so much better for a marriage. But contraception is never better for a marriage. It is like a slow-acting poison that blinds you while it eats away at the bond between you. It may not completely destroy your marriage, but it will weaken it. It will make it less of what God made it to be. It will also make you and your husband less of who God made you to be. Even if you don’t realize that until the very last of days.

God doesn’t want less for either of you, though. He wants more, marvelously, wondrously, gloriously more— more than you can ever imagine. Trust that. Trust Him. Trust His Teaching. And please know I am praying for both you and your husband.

If you’re reading this answer and curious to learn more about the Catholic Church’s teaching on contraception, start by reading Pope Paul VI’s encyclical, Humanae Vitae. I also authored an in-depth study on it for Endow back in 2018. You can buy that here. Additionally, I’d recommend Dr. Janet’s Smith’s book, Why Humanae Vitae is Still Right and her famous talk (now available as a free digital download), “Contraception: Why Not?”

If you are experiencing infertility or recurrent miscarriages and are struggling to find doctors who align with the Church’s teachings on contraception and infertility treatments, doctors trained in NaPro Technology can be found through My Catholic Doctor.

Our parish priest commits atrocities and sacrileges, and the archbishop seems to ignore it. What do I do?

Ugh, what a nightmare. I am assuming these atrocities and sacrileges would not be considered criminal behavior by the courts. If I am wrong, though, then don’t worry about the archbishop; go straight to the police. If you have direct knowledge of any crime, I would file a report immediately.

If, however, the abuses are more in the realm of liturgy, doctrine, or care for sacred objects, I would start by talking to the priest. Make your concern known to him directly. I know that can be uncomfortable, but it’s what Jesus instructs us to do: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone,” (Matthew 18:15). If that doesn’t work, Jesus gives us the next step: “But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses,” (Matthew 18:16). I know it’s tempting to avoid confrontation and go straight to the bishop, but Jesus seems to think it’s important to address our problems directly with one another from the start. I tend to agree. Not only because I know a good many priests who feel blindsided when they learn parishioners have been complaining to the bishop about them without speaking to them first, but also because it’s almost always the best and most mature way to deal with any conflict in our lives.

If you have already done this to no avail, or for some other reason it’s just not possible, I would reach out to your archbishop again, and encourage other parishioners with the same concerns to do the same. Most bishops prefer hearing nothing about their priests, good or bad, and do tend to respond if someone is eliciting a fair amount of complaints. You could also attempt to schedule a meeting with the archbishop, but I know that is easier said than done.

Beyond that, if there is something unusually and uniquely horrific that your priest is doing you could try reaching out to a Catholic news organization like The Pillar (which does the best investigative reporting around), to try to shine some wider attention on the issues. Bishops hate getting letters about their priests, but they hate negative attention from the press (and especially The Pillar) even more. But only do this if the abuses are truly horrific, unusual, and newsworthy. The Pillar and other Catholic news organizations are super busy, operating on shoestring budgets and show string staffs, so your priest would have to be guilty of something other than your run of the mill negligence, sloppiness, and abuse (which are unfortunately far, far too common) for you to do this. So, for example, leaving the Blessed Host exposed with no one there to adore and guard is wrong, but not unusual. It’s not newsworthy. Actually desecrating the Host, maliciously, willfully, and dramatically during some kind of Black Sabbath would be unusual and newsworthy. Similarly, preaching heretical things about sexuality from pulpit is bad and wrong, but also not unusual or newsworthy. Having orgies in the sanctuary after hours would be. 

It may be that one of these suggestions helps. It may be that none of them help. Either way, pray for your priest. Pray for him in an intentional, concerted, and committed way, whether that’s offering up a weekly Holy Hour for him, having Masses said for him, or praying a daily Rosary or Novena for him. Enlist others to pray, too. Get a whole team going if needs be. And while you’re at it, pray for your bishop, as well.

C.S. Lewis (through the mouth of the fictional demon Screwtape), wrote, “The fine flower of unholiness can grow only in the close neighborhood of the Holy. Nowhere do we tempt so successfully as on the very steps of the altar.” I second that. All of us, in some way or other, are caught up in the great battle between good and evil. The devil is interested in capturing us all. But he’s particularly interested in capturing the souls of priests and bishops. They bring so many more souls with them when they fall—sometimes the better part of a parish, a school, a diocese, or even a county. So take prayer for them deadly seriously. They need it. And remember that even when nothing else can reach them in their sin or indifference, prayer can. Jesus can.  

Do you have any spiritual book recommendations on a) trusting God’s plan for your life; and b) surrender and hope?

I always have book recommendations.

When it comes to books on trusting God’s plan, the first one that comes to mind is Trusting God in the Present by Father Jacques Philippe. Jesus I Trust in You: A 30-Day Personal Retreat with the Litany of Trust by Sister Faustina Maria Pia is also excellent.

As for surrender, perhaps the greatest book ever written on the topic is Abandonment to Divine Providence, which was written in the eighteenth century by Dom Jean-Pierre de Caussade. It’s a book meant to be read slowly and meditatively, almost like you are on retreat with it. The ever wonderful Joseph Pieper also wrote a short(ish) meditation on the virtue of hope: On Hope. And, of course, one of my favorite things any pope has ever written is the encyclical Pope Benedict wrote on hope, Spe Salvi (“Saved in Hope”). If you want to work your way back through my 2023 newsletters, you’ll find short meditations and questions I wrote each week, as readers and I read it together.

Five Fast Things

1. I’ve started lifting weights three mornings a week with one of my best friends. For years, everything I have read about aging well and managing perimenopause symptoms said that serious resistance training is a must for women over 40. But I kept putting off going and continued just walking in the mornings … while also feeling worse and worse no matter how many miles I walked. Finally, thanks to my friend’s persistence, I went to a strength training class with her. Much to my surprise I completely loved it. Now, whenever we go, it’s one of the high points of my day! Moreover, all my fears about looking out of place in a gym with a bunch of big sweaty guys were unfounded. As it turns out, most days, the only man there is the instructor. Everyone else is a middle aged woman, too! Apparently, we’ve all been listening to the same podcasts. 🤣🤣🤣  Just passing along in case anyone else has similar fears.

2. Speaking of podcasts, a new episode of Visitation Sessions came out yesterday: “Pope Francis Gets Lit!” It may be our most controversial ever.

3. Long time readers know of my undying devotion to wool, especially woolen long underwear for both the kiddos and me. Wearing wool all winter long as a base layer under everything makes dressing little kids easier (and living in a drafty old house so much more comfortable). My favorite brand of wool (the only one the kids will wear) is Simply Merino. It is silky soft, super comfy, and incredibly warm. They just released their new fall colors, and you can get 10 percent off your purchase with my discount code: Emily10.

4. I was surprisingly edified by Michael Moynihan’s interview with John Mackey, the founder of Whole Foods, on Honestly (Bari Weiss’ podcast). I was particularly struck by what he sees as the best part of having enormous wealth.

5. Katherine Johnson Martino of The Analog Family makes an excellent point in her essay, “What Do We Parent For?” Yes, we all want to raise healthy, mature, free adults, but in many ways that starts with the types of days we are cultivating for our kids right now. The essay is short and worth a read.

This issue is free to read and free to share, so please pass it on to anyone you think might benefit from it.