Guilt, belief, responsibility

Amanda Marcotte writes:

Pandagon: Speaking ill of the dead: I'm tired of feeling forbidden to speak ill of the dead right now. Pope John Paul II was ultimately a wicked man, and he was wickeder still for thinking of himself as righteous. Two simple things were at hand for him to promote that would have done enormous good for his flock--the condom to stop a disease that kills and contraception to make poverty more manageable.

In fact she compares this situation (unwillingness to criticize the Pope during his funeral) to weasel words in an obit about a boxer/domestic-offender's death.  And I agree with her about the Pope's and the Church's behaviour regarding the molested chidren: disgusting.

But this also raises a question that troubles me.  Can someone acting on a belief be wicked simply for the belief?  I agree that the Pope's position on contraception was foolish and wrong, based on a very peculiar metaphysic that I don't really share.  And the issue is far more clear-cut then abortion, since contraception can never be construed to block anything but hypothetical lives.  But the Catholic Church's position is based, as far as I can tell, on the sincere belief that AIDS and so on is caused by sexual immorality as they define it, and contraception is a means to encourage and enable further sexual immorality, and therefore it is not an effective means to get at the root of the problem.

Of course, you have to believe that it is possible to eradicate sexual immorality.  And naturally, they believe that it is possible. Ultra-conservative Catholic web sites like Tradition in Action would have us believe (probably quite incorrectly) that there was a perfect sexual order (perfect relative to their standards) in the height of the Church, that is the medieval period. 

Then in this sincere belief that their position is what will attack the root of the problem, how can one hold the Pope guilty in death?  Of course, lying about the effectiveness of condoms is one thing.  But that the Pope believed condoms weren't the right way to go in principle, another.  It seems to me that Amanda views him as wicked (worse than wrong) for the belief as much as for the lie.

Of course, it's a totally academic question, whether one considers the Pope "wicked" for this belief or not.  He's no longer among us.  But if one is to ascribe these kinds of epithets to people, one has to decide whether or not a sincere belief can be in itself "wicked".  I'm not so sure.

Comments

[Shane O.]

First - the Catholic Church isn't against contraception, it's against artificial contraception. In fact, the Church is probably the biggest promoter of NFP (which is considerably more sophisticated than the rhythm method of old).
Second - I think it's truer to say that the Church believes AIDS (and other death/disease-causing things) to be the consequence of sin. Be careful here, I'm not saying specifically the sin of any one individual - theologically, it's because of sin that death entered the world. There is no attempt to blame a child contracting AIDS from his mother (or even necessarily the mother, for that matter). Just the existence of horrible things comes due to sin - you can disagree with the theology, but I think that's a truer interpretation of it.
Contraception isn't wrong merely because it encourages immorality (the Church likes to think it's as God defines it, not us), but also because it does harm to the way God designed our bodies to sexually relate to each other. If you want to look at JPII's influence on sexual morality, this would be one of the key areas to study. In what's become known as his Theology of the Body, he's given new ways of arguing against contraception - not merely as something unnatural, that works against the proper functioning of the human body - but also as something that demeans the ways of communicating between the spouses (and even moreso where it's not spouses who are sexually engaged). There's a certain language spoken by spouses in their sexual union - there's an opportunity to say, "I totally accept you and I offer you my whole self, unreservedly." Artificial contraception (AC) says, "I'll take and (and perhaps offer) pleasure; but we need to check our fertility at the door." AC attempts to leave an intrinsic part of sex out of the equation, and causes violence to the relationship. It breeds mistrust and non-acceptance. We see this most vividly when used outside of marriage, where dating culture is rife with people out for a good time, but who don't really trust each other. Oh, they trust each other with their physical bodies, but not with their lives. That kind of trust can only happen in a lifetime spent together - open to whatever fruitfulness they may receive (my wife and I have 5 fruits already!).

I don't know it you check back this far (it was posted 8 months ago, I noticed), but I noticed it and had the time to drop a clarifying note (not that I'm an authority on this, but it interests me).

[Shane O.]

One more thing - are you saying that it's not lying about the effectiveness of condoms to tell people they offer 'protection', 'safety', and 'responsibility'? There needs to be truth and honesty in the use of words. When it comes to AIDS, what effectiveness do people expect? What can you promise them by using a condom? Why is it not considered a type of sexual violence to breed a culture where hook-ups often result in STD's, where men and women learn to distrust each other as anything other than providers of sexual pleasure? To those who promote condoms, you're not just giving people a piece of rubber/latex - more often than not, you're selling them a vision of sexuality that necessarily (at least statistically) includes the above negatives (and many more). Compare that to two people who wait for each other and then open their lives to children from their union. None of the same negatives.