Ordo Praedicatorum

The First Annual Meeting of the Society for Spirituality, Theology, and Health, Fr. Chris Saliga, OP, was invited to present a paper on a topic concerning the intersection of theology and health. The Society is affiliated with the Duke Center for Spirituality, Theology, and Health.  This first meeting brought together more than 400 scholars from a wide-range of academic fields.

During the conference, Fr. Saliga presented a paper entitled: “Promotion of Holistic Health via Excellent Family Planning: A Catholic Perspective”.  In the paper he gave, Fr. Saliga discussed the following:

This paper explains why the Catholic Church endorses only non-contraceptive sexual intercourse between spouses, even in cases in which there is “excellent medical rationale” for practicing contraceptive sexual intercourse. At its core, it demonstrates that spouses who freely engage in non-contraceptive sexual intercourse strengthen their communion with each other and with God while those who engage in contraceptive sexual intercourse contravene both.
First, key anthropological and aretaic presuppositions are explicated to help readers clearly grasp Thomistic anthropological holism and integrated/virtuous spousal sexual activity.

Second, the one bi-partite object of non-contraceptive spousal union is fleshed out in order to demonstrate that, because every contraceptive sexual act violates the one bi-partite object of every virtuous sexual act, contraceptive sexual activity, regardless of circumstance and intention, is never good for spousal and family holistic health. Finally, practical and ethical implications that follow upon the fact that “catholic health institutions may not promote or condone contraceptive practices but should provide, for married couples and the medical staff who counsel them, instruction both about the Church’s teaching on responsible parenthood and in the methods of natural family planning” are considered.

In the end, readers come to a fuller appreciation of why the Catholic Church refuses to endorse contraceptive practices within Catholic health care organizations.

A number of the documents used by Fr. Saliga during his talk are available at the Society’s website, including his abstract, a handout, and the informational poster.

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