www.cormacburke.or.ke

There is a modern argument for conjugal contraception which claims to speak in personalist terms, and which could be summarised as follows. The marriage act has two functions: a biological or procreative function, and a spiritual-unitive function. However, while it is only potentially a procreative act, it is actually and in itself a love act: it truly expresses conjugal love and unites husband and wife. Now, while contraception frustrates the biological or procreative potential of the marital act, it fully respects its spiritual and unitive function; in fact it facilitates it by removing tensions or fears capable of impairing the expression of love in married intercourse. In other words - this position claims - while contraception suspends or nullifies the procreative aspect of marital intercourse, it leaves its unitive aspect intact.

           Your issue of March 1 has just reached me in Rome.  Louise Ni Chríodáin, in her article on High Court Judge Rory O'Hanlon, quotes me as "condemning all acts of sexual intercourse that are not for procreation".

           In protesting and totally rejecting this, may I say that one would expect a more exact reading of the sources before being accused of a position that no one in the Catholic Church holds.

            Your issue of September 21st has just reached me.  Your Political Correspondent, commenting on a recent Judgment of Mr. Justice Rory O'Hanlon which quotes from my book Covenanted Happiness, seems to question the propriety of a High Court Judge invoking 'Catholic theology' on the matter of contraception.