Response to a Popular Priest on Marital Foreplay
Overview
This article responds to Fr. Dave Nix’s claim that oral stimulation as marital foreplay is mortally sinful. It examines the theological authorities he cites and argues that they do not establish such a prohibition. Drawing on respected Catholic moral theologians, the article presents evidence that oral foreplay may be licit within the marital act.
Fr. Dave Nix is a traditional Catholic priest who is fairly well known online. I find some of his work to be fairly interesting, and I dislike the idea of having a public conflict with him. However, I wanted to provide a direct response to an article he wrote about martial chastity for the benefit of our paid supporters.
The core claim of his article is that oral penetration and anal penetration, even as foreplay where the marital act is ultimately completed in the proper manner, is mortally sinful, and that the authority of this claim comes from the Church Fathers and Doctors of the Catholic Church. I will not object to the portion of his claim that regards anal foreplay. Our site has discussed this elsewhere, and I personally can do no other than to discourage other couples from incorporating it at all. However, what I will respond to is the claims in his article that attempt to prove that oral stimulation is forbidden as foreplay under pain of mortal sin.
He points out early in the article that “98% of priest-confessors out there are misleading the Catholic laity on this topic”. If he is claiming that 98% of priests are wrong about something this serious, and he is right, then he is going to need to have an excellent argument that leaves no doubt about the conclusion. Otherwise, it seems that if 98% of priests believe something, it is likely safe to believe it as well. Let’s take a look at the arguments offered by Fr. Nix.
First, he starts by claiming that the Church Fathers and Doctors have taught otherwise on this topic and that the ‘unanimous consent of the Fathers” is to be considered infallible when interpreting the Sacred Scriptures, and he rightly points out that this is taught by the Council of Trent and the First Vatican Council. However, Fr. Nix does not provide a passage of Scripture that is to be interpreted as teaching what he is teaching in this article, much less citation of the Fathers unanimously interpreting the Scripture passage that way. Further, Pope Leo XIII, in Providentissimus Deus, his encyclical on “the study of Holy Scripture”, affirms this same teaching of Trent and Vatican I, also quotes St. Thomas Aquinas to point out that, “‘in those things which do not come under the obligation of faith, the Saints were at liberty to hold divergent opinions, just as we ourselves are,’ according to the saying of St. Thomas.” (Providentissimus Deus, 19) Therefore, it seems that even if the Fathers unanimously taught the same point that he is trying to make in this article, that would not necessarily settle the question on this point because it does not pertain to the interpretation of Scripture or even the “obligation of faith” since it does not say “faith AND morals”. All of this grants Fr. Nix’s point that this is what the Fathers actually teach since he does not actually offer any quotes from any of the Church Fathers teaching on this particular point, but instead expects us to take his word for it.
He does offer quotes from the two of the greatest saints and doctors of the Church, St. Alphonsus Liguori and St. Thomas Aquinas. Of the Doctors of the Church in general, Fr. Nix says, “a Doctor of the Church is a saint of the Catholic Church whose writings have been so meticulously evaluated by the Church that we know there is nothing contrary to their writings in the Magisterium. It’s not a guarantee that everything they wrote is infallible, but it’s pretty close.” Of the Doctors of the Church, the Catholic Encyclopedia says, “The decree (naming someone a “Doctor of the Church”) is issued by the Congregation of Sacred Rites and approved by the pope, after a careful examination, if necessary, of the saint's writings. It is not in any way an ex cathedra decision, nor does it even amount to a declaration that no error is to be found in the teaching of the Doctor. It is, indeed, well known that the very greatest of them are not wholly immune from error.” Saying that the Doctors of the Church are “pretty close” to being infallible seems overstated.
The quote he provides from St. Alphonsus Liguori offer the most direct and clear claim that oral stimulation as foreplay is mortally sinful out of anything else he offers in this article. That St. Alphonsus Liguori teaches against this is one of the primary arguments offered by those who claim oral foreplay is sinful because St. Alphonsus Liguori is the patron saint of moral theologians and confessors, and the Church has declared that his opinions are safe to follow. However, I have written an article responding to this claim before, and it is clear in the text declaring his safety that the Church is not requiring its members to agree with the opinions of St. Alphonsus, but only declaring that it is safe to do so. The decree says explicitly that “those who follow the opinions handed down by other approved authors should not be considered blameworthy”. I will demonstrate later in this article that several esteemed moral theologians saw this matter differently than St. Alphonsus. For the record, Fr. Nix also recognizes that there are moral theologians in the 20th century who teach that oral foreplay is permitted (as well as anal sex as foreplay, but again, this article is not interested in this), but he labels these moral theologians as heretical, and does not name them and therefore does not offer documentation that the Church declared these unnamed theologians as “heretical”. In this case, “heretical” is being used as a word for the moral theologians who disagree with Fr. Nix on this point. I will cite esteemed and respected moral theologians on this matter shortly. Fr. Nix also cites a quote from St. Thomas Aquinas that does not explicitly condemn oral stimulation as foreplay, but is being read as implying that this type of foreplay is sinful. If such quotes that offer implications are to be accepted as evidence of a position, then I submit this actually works in the favor of the argument for the permissibility of oral foreplay, since most of the moral theology manuals of the 20th century do not explicitly allow oral stimulation as foreplay, but they do not forbid it and what they do say is allowed very often implies that oral foreplay is permissible. If “implications” are to be accepted as evidence of a position, then that street goes both ways, and works much more in favor of my argument.
The final piece of evidence Fr. Nix offers as an argument comes from the website of an Eastern Orthodox parish which says that oral sex, “whether open to conception or not, is a perversion of the use of one’s sexual organs and is never permissible”. The argument is that the Eastern Orthodox Churches “attempt to take all their dogmatic and moral theology from the Fathers. In other words, the above is an a fortiori argument that if even the Eastern Orthodox recognize such actions as sinful, so much the more should a Roman Catholic reject them.” However, by citing the teachings of this parish as part of his attempt to prove his point, Fr. Nix has a problem. Another page on the website of the same parish, which answers the question “Can Orthodox Christians Use Contraception?” says this, “The Orthodox Church hallows both birth control and some forms of contraception within marriage subject to the following conditions: 1. Human life cannot end as a result, and 2. You have the blessing of your spiritual father”. Though this Orthodox Church discourages contraception, it does not teach, as the Catholic Church does, that contraception is intrinsically evil and always forbidden. Does it follow that this teaching alaso comes from the Church Fathers, since Fr. Nix believes that the Orthodox Churches attempt to take their moral teachings from the Fathers? Fr. Nix would rightly say that this teaching does not come from the Fathers, but then would have to concede that citing the moral claims of this Orthodox parish does not prove what is moral or sinful in the eyes of God.
Fr. Nix does not address the reality that many moral theologians who wrote moral theology manuals do allow for oral stimulation as foreplay, and he seems to think that this type of allowance stems from the Theology of the Body somehow. However, these moral theologians were writing on these matters far before the Theology of the Body teaching came to be, but it is not fair toward these theologians to suggest that they are heretical, when they are in fact, highly esteemed. Fr. John Ford S.J. and Fr. Gerald Kelly S.J., in their moral theology manual state about oral-genital contacts preparatory to intercourse:
“These acts would obviously be grave sins against chastity if they involved a serious and unjustifiable risk of orgasm outside intercourse. But provided this is excluded, most theologians today would say that in these acts there is certainly no grave sin against conjugal chastity and probably no venial sin as long as the partners have a justifying reason, for instance that these acts are necessary or useful to the achievement of satisfactory sexual relations. In other words these acts are considered morally (not aesthetically) comparable to other incomplete preparatory acts as far as their essential chastity is concerned. Their “obscenity” or “nastiness” does not make them unchaste.” (Frs. Ford and Kelly)
Another well-respected moral theologian, Fr. Hieronymous Noldin S.J. says this about oral-genital contact as foreplay in his moral theology manual:
“There are those who condemn extremely obscene acts between spouses as grave sins, even without the danger of pollution. They list such acts: if they touch each other's genitals with their mouths or tongues, and the like. But in these acts, as in the rest, two elements must be distinguished. The first is the danger of pollution. This is common to them, albeit to a greater degree, with all imperfect acts; insofar as this danger is considered, special malice does not apply to them. The second element is obscenity or foulness, which is said. Now, however, there is no action between married people, nor can it be imagined, which, because of foulness alone, is intrinsically evil, so that it can never be made lawful. Therefore, there is no lack of authors who consider that those acts are not to be exempted from the general rule on the lawfulness of imperfect acts. Therefore, if experience were to show that in certain persons those acts do not induce an immediate danger of pollution, at least they would not be gravely sinful.” (Noldin)
Both of the above citations, state that their view is shared by many other theologians. Most theologians, as Fr. Noldin points out, simply state that imperfect acts are allowed without specifying or forbidding oral foreplay. For example, Fr. John McHugh O.P. and Fr. Charles Callan O.P., in their moral theology manual, state, “Coition is lawful in the married state, and this legitimizes all the preparatory or accessory endearments” (McHugh and Callan, 392). They also state that non-consummated venereal acts in marriage “are lawful per se when they are used only as accessories to the act of marriage or as means to foster or preserve conjugal love” (417). Another respected moral theologian, Fr. Dominic Prummer O.P. says in his moral theology manual, “whatever is useful for or necessary to the perfect fulfilment of the conjugal act and the fostering of marital love is not sinful” (Prummer, 411). Neither Prummer, nor Callan and McHugh explicitly name oral stimulation as a forbidden act. Like them, there are many moral manuals that simply say the same as them that whatever helps the couple engage in the marital act and fosters marital love is allowed, thus demonstrating my point from earlier that if various implications are to be accepted as evidence of a position, then that works in favor of my argument, and proves the point of Frs. Ford, Kelly, and Noldin that most moral theologians today do not see oral stimulation as foreplay as sinful, and far from being heretical, these are highly respected moral theologians. More examples of such theologians and their teachings can be found in our compendium.
In conclusion, Fr. Nix did not satisfactorily prove that oral stimulation of the genitals as foreplay for the marital act is sinful. He made several assertions that he needed to prove, but did not, thus not, as he claimed “writing everything pertinent from the saints” which may have strengthened his point. He minimized the number as well as the value of teachings of the moral theologians that disagree with him on this, while overstating how we must view the teachings of St. Alphonsus Liguori and St. Thomas Aquinas. If there is another convincing argument that oral foreplay is sinful, Fr. Nix did not make it. If one wishes to follow his advice anyway, go for it, but nothing he presented in this article suffices to prove the assertion that oral foreplay is sinful, thus it remains on the table as an option for those couples who need to make use of it in their marital relations, and is able to be engaged in without sin.
