There is a troubling claim being made over on the Zippy Catholic blog. Consider the case of someone who has chosen to be permanently sterilized (for example, by a non-reversible vasectomy) so that they can have sex, but not children. The claim is being made that even if this person repents, they will never be able to have sex again without sinning. It’s claimed that this follows from various teachings, including Humanae Vitae and Veritatis Splendor.

A long discussion in the comments at that blog hasn’t resolved the matter. But the claim is false, and showing why this is so helps illuminate what a moral decision must always involve.

First, two things to note about the precise teaching of Humanae Vitae: it does not teach that choosing to engage in sex that is non-procreative is necessarily morally wrong. But, precisely, it does teach that to choose to do something that changes a sexual act into a non-procreative act is wrong – an actual act must be chosen that is intended to make the sexual act non-procreative. This act can take place before, during, or after the sex. It is choosing an act that makes the sex non-procreative that is an evil choice, and not merely the choice to engage in non-procreative sex.

(In support of this precision, we can see that the CDF, in a pronouncement in 1977, ruled that it was permissible for a sterile person to marry — consistent with the idea that just by engaging in non-procreative sex someone has not necessarily chosen a moral evil.)

If someone chooses do something to become sterile, so that they will not have children, then — as taught in Humanae Vitae —  they have made an evil choice. In this case, choosing the act that makes them sterile is the evil choice. Or, as a different example, if someone chooses to wear a condom during sex, they have also made an evil choice. In that case, choosing to wear the condom during sex is the evil choice, since it makes the act non-procreative.

In each case, for a moral evil to occur, a choice had to be freely made. In the two examples, the person chose to become sterile, or chose to wear the condom.

But now consider the case of someone who chose to make themselves sterile some time previously, but has subsequently genuinely repented of that decision. When he later engages in sex, does he commit a moral evil contrary to Humanae Vitae? No, because he is not freely choosing to do anything that causes that later sex act to be non-procreative. To point to what is contrary to Humanae Vitae, one must point to an actual choice that makes sex non-procreative. The man did make such a free choice back in time, which was wrong. But in later sex, even though the sex is non-procreative, there is no later choice of an act that makes the sex non-procreative.

Without a choice being free, it does not have the possibility of being a moral choice, whether evil or good.

(One objection that needs to be covered: since the action of the repentant man is the same as that of an unrepentant man, then one might conclude that both must sin, since intentions and circumstances make no difference to the morality of the act in question (which is an intrinsic evil). But this doesn’t take into account that the repentant man and unrepentant man do not have the same capability for choosing freely. Whether a choice is free is something distinct from intentions and circumstances.)