.en anglais...

Circumstantial and Active Infertility Contrasted as Acts

In Question 15, article 2 of his Disputed Questions on Evil, a question about “Whether every act of lust is a mortal sin?”, St Thomas Aquinas considers an objection which seeks to infer from the permissibility of intercourse in marriage with a sterile wife, the permissibility of a range of non-generative sexual activities. To which he replies:that act is said to be contrary to nature in the genus of lust from which, according to the general character [‘species’] of the act generation cannot follow, but not that act from which it cannot follow because of some particular incidental [‘accidens’] circumstance such as old age or infirmity.

This may sound obscure. What is meant, I think, is that while the character of your performance can ensure that generation cannot follow, if what you do is the normal kind of sexual intercourse your happening to be sterile does not alter the character of the act as the kind of performance which, in its behavioural pattern, is apt for generation.

Le caractère infécond de l'acte est dû à une disposition de nature de la personne, indépendante de sa volonté, ce n'est pas l'acte en lui-même dans son accomplissement qui a été rendu infécond de façon intentionnelle, c'est donc licite.

Hildegarde

(PS je cite une partie d'un message posté plus haut dans une autre discussion par le liseur La Favillana, vous pouvez le retrouver facilement -objection à Rhonheimer)