Question: Will God forgive me after oral sex?
Unable to concentrate on work one day, I went through my blog stats for the umpteenth time that day and stopped to stare at one search engine term: “Will God forgive me after oral sex?”
It’s not the first time I’ve seen it or its kind. I frequently come across similar search engine terms, like: “Will God forgive me for masturbating?” “How to confess pornography?” and so on. Clearly it is a matter that weighs heavily on the minds of a lot of people and it’s something that I’ve not really touched on in my posts.
Pornography, masturbation, and oral sex (outside of marital sexual intercourse), and contraception are all various evils in our world today. “No one gets hurt,” seems to be the cry of those who protest the Catholic Church’s teachings as archaic. But is that true? And if it is, why this guilty feeling that so many have after committing these acts? Why the sense of unfulfilment and dissatisfaction, especially in relationships, that come from living a life centred around one’s own sexual pleasure?
Various forms of reasoning and justification takes place in our minds, providing us with excuses to believe that no one gets hurt when we commit these acts, yet many of us still continue to feel inexplicably guilty and dissatisfied. Deep down, we know we’ve done something wrong and no amount of reasoning removes that guilty feeling, but because our mind can’t or won’t see what’s wrong, we can’t or won’t take steps to remedy it.
The addiction of masturbation and pornography, usually committed alone these days, seems to hurt no one, and therefore there’s nothing wrong with it, we reason. The woman, or man, which is the object of our sexual fantasy, does it willingly and is paid to do it, we reason. There’s no reason why she is harmed by it since she does it consensually.
But we forget one important person in the act that is harmed by it - ourselves… the person who engages in the act.
There are numerous harmful effects of viewing pornography. Firstly, pornography is not real; it’s a fantasy. It allows us to see things that are not real, and while we may think that we can distinguish between the fantasy and the real thing, viewing porn creates a kind of expectation in us that we want our (present or future) spouses to meet. But because porn is a fantasy, those expectations are not real and can therefore not be met to our satisfaction.
This harms our relationship with our spouse, or future spouse. It affects our ability to relate with members of the opposite sex, preventing us from loving another properly and being loved properly.
Secondly, in pornography, the women (and men) become objects, no longer persons, to be used for our own sexual gratification. Over time, our ability to distinguish between humans and objects becomes diminished. We see all people as objects and tools to be used to achieve our own ends.
Now this has serious consequences indeed, because suddenly, anyone who is of no use to us can be gotten rid of… including the elderly, the unborn child, and the physically and mentally handicapped. If we can’t get anything out of them, we get rid of them.
This too is tied in with contraceptives and oral sex which, without the dual nature of bonding and openness to life, becomes another form of masturbation - mutual masturbation. The issue of whether it is consensual or not has nothing to do with it.
One frequent objection that is brought up is that spiritual and emotional bonding can still take place during sex, even though physical bonding is prevented through the use of barriers.
It could happen if humans were purely spiritual beings, but because humans are material beings too, bonding has to take place on a physical level as well.
The fruitfulness of sex is another side of the same coin as bonding. The two of them cannot be separated, because that is the physical, emotional, and spiritual nature of sexual intercourse between husband and wife.
Contraceptives, oral sex, masturbation, all place physical barriers to true sex, which reduces it to a mere act of physical gratification, rather than the original unity meant for man and woman.
They all reduce a loving and total relationship to a utilitarian one. Again, whether the person being used gives his or her consent to being used has no bearing on the issue. The point is that someone is being used as a tool, and not treated as a human should be - with dignity and love. When you use a person, you are not loving that person.
So what can a person do once he realises what he has done wrong? As it is so aptly put by yet another search engine term I found that day: “Will God forgive me if I have oral sex?”, the answer is “Yes!”
As with all sins that separate man from God, the Church offers the remedy of forgiveness of sins through the sacrament of reconciliation.
If you are a Catholic, even if you haven’t been a practising one for years, so long as you desire forgiveness from God, are sorrowful for the sins you know you’ve committed, and desire to change your ways, you can be forgiven by God. Note that these conditions are no different from the normal conditions for the forgiveness of any other sin.
Do not hesitate. Seek out a priest that you are comfortable with, talk to him about it and make a good confession today.
If you’re not a Catholic, well, there’s no reason for you to keep the rules of the Catholic Church, unless you see some sense in what the Catholic Church teaches. Feel free to approach a Catholic priest that you can feel comfortable with. He can advise you what to do.
Related articles:
Filed under: Chastity, Masturbation, Pornography, Relationships, Sex
[...] http://catholicwriter.wordpress.com/2006/10/14/question-will-god-forgive-me-after-oral-sex/ Pornography, masturbation, and oral sex (outside of marital sexual intercourse), and contraception are all various evils in our world today. “No one gets hurt,” seems to be the cry of those who protest the Catholic Church’s teachings as archaic. But is that true? And if it is, why this guilty feeling that so many have after committing these acts? Why the sense of unfulfilment and dissatisfaction, especially in relationships, that come from living a life centred around one’s own sexual pleasure? [...]
I hope God will forgive all of us for all our sexual fantasies.
I’d like to advise you to read an article dedicated to oral sex: <link removed> I hope it will be useful for you.
CW: I removed the link because the website also supports certain things that are in contradiction to Catholic
teaching. I feel that there is no need to help advertise more of these.
In reply to love guide, I would say that God’s forgiveness of our sins is dependent only on one thing - our repentance, which means that we are sorry for our sins and that we are willing to do whatever it takes to change our ways… which I why I cannot endorse the advertising of the website given.
God bless,
Catholic Writer
“And if it is, why this guilty feeling that so many have after committing these acts? Why the sense of unfulfilment and dissatisfaction, especially in relationships, that come from living a life centred around one’s own sexual pleasure?”
I don’t think you’re doing it right
I don’t get any of these x. Masturbation is such fun, and of course, it keeps your reproductive tract in good working order, and reduces your chances of prostate cancer.
mmm, oral… ever done a 69? It’s great, especially to completion. It’s a shame you’ve got such a weird cafflick thing about sex, sorry bout that dude. Hopefully one day you’ll let go of this silliness and have a more varied sex life! All the best!
Dear Neo,
One basis for writing this post is that the person reading it faces guilt in his or her sexual relationship due to oral sex. It assumes that the person reading also believes in God, and is likely a Christian, perhaps even a Catholic… with a working conscience.
If you don’t get any of these, you’re probably not one of the above, which therefore leads to the natural conclusion that this post is not for you. But since you have commented here, it is only right that I try to cater some points of the post to your comments… and also for the benefit of other readers.
Masturbation is usually accompanied by pornography and some form of fantasy. Addiction to pornography has broken up many marriages, and has prevented many men from developing life-giving and truly loving relationships. The reason for this is that masturbation is love that is directed inwards, whereas true love is always directed outwards.
Masturbation may be fun, but it is not healthy. Reason being that it affects your emotional and spiritual state. As humans are more than merely physical creatures, anything that affects us emotionally or spiritually in a negative way will also have negative consequences on our physical life.
A person who believes that humans are purely physical beings is one that is probably one that is driven to obtain maximum pleasure. However, this belief is not based on reality, but more likely based on the person’s unwillingness to face reality. Hence, the likelihood to indulge in fantasy from which he derives pleasure.
It is also this fantasy that prevents him from engaging in a truly life-giving relationship with a woman, because no woman can match up to the person’s sexual fantasies.
God bless,
Catholic Writer
A little background on me: I am a former alter-boy (no I was not abused) and I spent 9 years in catholic schools. I have many questions.
1. What is truth?
2. What does “god” want?
3. What is moral?
4. Ever contemplate those questions when you think of what was moral to the Mayans; or to various tribes in Africa; or the ancient Greeks; or to those in the Unification Church; or to Buddhists?
5. Ever think deeply about why we think the way you do? Ever think about why they think they way they do?
6. Ever contemplate the children who are being raised in the middle East right now? Those being raised to believe that if they die killing Jews, that they will be rewarded by god?
7. What makes our thoughts more “right” than those of other cultures, past and present?
8. Ever think about the amount of pain, killing, suffering that has been perpetrated in the name of “god” or the church? On the “persecution of individuals” level, I think of those persecuted for thinking scientifically, or being pregnant outside of marriage, or having oral sex. On a larger scale, I think about how “god” is claimed to be on both sides in many deadly conflicts.
9. Ever think about the numerous injustices caused in the past and presently by those in charge of various churches?
10. Have you ever wondered what happened to the fictional god of old? I have. What happened to the really big, non-mistakable miracles? The big ones, like parting the sea, plagues, bringing people back to life in front of crowds? Can you imagine the converts if any of those miracles were performed for a television audience?
11. Ever contemplate which version of the bible is true? People believe in the bible as the word of god. As a young man I discovered many bible versions out there… and wondered how did they come to be. As far as the new testament is concerned, I learned that the language at the time of Jesus was Aramaic, and that many of the stories in the new testament were written many years after the fact. The new testament(s) we have now were translated from Greek for the most part. Some stories were included and some stories were rejected based upon “god-inspired” choices made by religious clergy at various times in history (http://www.bidstrup.com/bible.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_bible).
12. Ever contemplate how difficult it is to truly understand the writings of something written in English just 150 years ago? Take Alice in Wonderland” for instance. Without some study, we cannot really understand the author’s thoughts. That is a book written in our own language a few generations ago (see a version of Annotated Alice http://www2.wwnorton.com/catalog/fall99/annotatednotes2.htm). Now contemplate how old the bible is, and how many transformations it has gone through. What is truth?
Over time, we all have seen science explain-away and dismiss gods of the sun, moon, star constellations, etc… It seems at this point in humankind’s existence, that as far as religion goes, there are very few things left (where we come from and where we go after death) that are not scientifically explainable. So humankind continues to make up ways to explain the unexplainable.
I can understand scientifically explainable events and thoughts. But I have some difficulty understanding or believing in the religious beliefs that persist today given the history and science we know. I find in interesting that there are so many cultures who continue to build fictional stories and religious thoughts on top of other fictional stories and religious thoughts? There are so many instances throughout time of what we may consider today to be odd beliefs. I have walked through the remains of Pompeii—a snapshot in time of 79AD. You know there are many penises… yes penises in the paintings, in the sculpture, in the architecture, and jewelry (yes it was also worn on a chain around the neck). The penis was viewed as a good luck charm that warded off the “evil eye”. By the way, there were all sorts of graffiti on the walls, but there was no sign of Christianity (no crosses). Why is that? I just searched the net and came up with this site and discussion:
http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/message_list.asp?pageID=2&discussionID=280808&messages_per_page=4
Why does organized religion spend so much effort imposing guilt trips on couples and individuals because of misguided fantasy-based beliefs on oral sex, contraception, and manual manipulation (masturbation)? Lighten up. Stand back and look at life and consider the probability that many man-made religious rules go against nature. Maybe you should consider the United States Bill of Rights as the basis for your future beliefs.
Dear Jack,
Those are very good questions and I can see that you do spend quite a bit of time thinking of matters like these. If you’re asking me personally, I can give you my responses, as I have also thought about them.
Perhaps we start with morality, which is basically human ethics with regard to good and evil. By those who believe in God, it is measured according to the commandments of God. By those who do not believe in God, it is measured according to what benefits the society. Immoral people are therefore corrected or removed from society to preserve the society. Of course this must be done in a moral way.
When one looks at moral laws and examines God’s commandments, they are remarkably similar… simply because God wants humanity to progress and evolve into being all that they can be without resulting in self-destruction.
If we want to look at situations like the Middle East, we need to be very clear whether the suffering that is happening there is being caused by religion or politics. Take for example the war on Iraq. We have an American president going to war there to remove a dictator, and entrusting his troops in God’s will. Is that driven by religion and the fight for liberty? Or is it economically driven by the desire for more oil?
We need to be very clear whether God is really on the sides of those fighting in a war, or whether the leaders of these nations are using God for their own purposes. Obviously in this case, and in many other cases of war, people are using God for their own purposes, whatever they may be. It is ignorant to say that religion is the cause for war when the reasons are obviously politically driven.
Moving on, science does explain a lot of things, but science has an obvious limitation: its scope covers only that which can be observed. Science cannot be used to explain that which cannot be observed. Also, it cannot be used in philosophical realms, for example, science cannot explain the meaning of life. It’s a question that everyone has asked and has been asking for thousands of years, but science still cannot and will never be able to answer that.
Religion, however, can… and it has answered the question many times. Many people have found the answer to that question in religion. If you consider this “making up ways to explain the unexplainable”, that explanation itself is unfounded. It is neither scientific nor logical. It is, in your own words, “making up ways to explain the unexplainable”.
As to why there is no Christianity in Pompeii in AD 79, perhaps that was because Christianity had not spread that far at that time yet. Perhaps you can summarise those 59 replies for me? I don’t have the time to read them all.
Finally, on your last paragraph, you ask why organized religion spends so much effort on imposing guilt trips on couples and individuals. I have to say that organized religion is the reason why many countries today are countries to begin with. America and many countries in Europe and the Middle East, they all began with a founding in Christianity or Islam. Even China has a founding in Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. All these religions teach the same thing when it comes to morality. All these religions are there to help humanity make its way forward. It does so by providing humanity with certain moral laws to follow. When humanity ignores these laws, it crumbles.
One very good example is the Roman Empire which crumbled into itself. Roman civilisations then are very much like what we are today - secular and plagued by immoral sex. Oral sex, anal sex, homosexuality, contraception, abortion, masturbation, adultery - all the immorality that is happening today happened in the Roman Empire as well.
The reason that organized religion spends so much effort on these matters is because organized religion does not want to see our civilisations crumble. It has happened before, to the Greeks, to the Romans, etc. Will it happen to America next? Only time will tell. I’m just glad that I don’t live in America.
But perhaps an explanation on why sexual immorality leads to the decadence and fall of empires. Sexual immorality is based on one principle - using another person for personal gratification. All that we mentioned above - anal sex, oral sex, homosexuality, contraception (mutual masturbation), masturbation, adultery - they are all based on this principle of using another person for one’s own gratification. Abortion is a consequence of failed contraception.
When we use another person for our own purposes, humans become reduced to tools. When a society no longer looks at people as humans, but tools for a certain purpose, then that society begins to lose its own humanity. It no longer places humans at the ends of its purposes, but humans become a means to acquire something. That something can be economic wealth, political influence, personal pleasure, etc.
When we look at the situation in the Middle East, or wherever there is war, we see humans being used as tools. When we look at the scientific world and see testing being conducted on humans, we see humans being used as tools. When humans are not the most important thing in the eyes of the leaders of a society, then that society begins to crumble.
We must therefore consider the question: In my society, are humans the end or the means to an end? For God and organized religion, humans are always the end.
Something to ponder about over the long holiday.
Happy Christmas,
Catholic Writer
Hi,
I wanted to comment o Jack Burns…..
I dot have alot to say but, Where there is good there is evil. The devil has alot to do with society today.
What i really wanted to say was that ……dont fail the test!
I was born and raised Catholic but fell away years ago. How the Catholic Church handles sexual topics has always disturbed me because of the seemingly harsh consequences for something as natural as masturbation .
The answer to the masturbation question was always “resist yourself and wait for a wet dream”. I have failed at this literally thousands of times.
The difficulty as any red-blooded male knows is that it the longer you go without ejaculation, the more tempting it becomes. It becomes hard if not impossible to focus at times. A quick masturbation can let you get back to life and not be a neurotic mess. I’ve found that I can focus better after that instead of being barely able to control myself. I guess I just don’t understand how that is harmful if it is under control. God built our bodies to be this way.
Also, does the catholic church think it is wrong for a woman to give a man a hand-job? There’s no difference then if a woman is doing it or yourself.
I’m not being cynical I’m just curious.
Hi John,
Thanks for sharing. Now I must first say that I’m not a priest, religious, or expert on sexual teachings. I’m like you, a lay Catholic, born and raised Catholic, and I too struggled with these issues for many years. I found the answers I was looking for in Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body (albeit, a simpler condensed version from the original) and I would like to share it with other Catholics also struggling with this issue, hence this blog.
The thing about masturbation is that if you’ve never done it, or have not done it for a long time, there’s no problem in going without it. Wet dreams are pretty frequent for young men. I’ve counted five times for myself in the past month.
God built our bodies to release the build-up of sperm through wet dreams. We know that’s natural because it happens without artificial stimulation. It’s not something within our control, and is a normal bodily function, like sweating.
The difficulty comes when one has experienced the pleasure of masturbation, which is not natural at all, since it involves the artificial stimulation of the penis.
As with all things pleasurable, masturbation can become an addiction. We enjoy the pleasure that masturbation gives and if we don’t masturbate, we suffer withdrawal symptoms, such as the difficulty in focusing that you mention that you experience. It becomes hard to think of anything else other than the desire to ease our sexual tension. That’s when you know that you’re addicted to it, although it might be a while before you come to accept that you’re addicted. I know it took me a long while before I was able to admit it. Being able to admit that you’re addicted to masturbation, and being able to ask someone for help is the first step to recovering from the addiction.
But what’s really wrong with masturbation? It doesn’t seem to hurt anyone, does it? Well, it does, actually. For one thing, it is not good for anyone to be addicted to anything (even if that thing is religion). Addiction is never good for anyone. Even if one is not addicted to masturbation, the act of masturbation is almost always accompanied by the viewing of pornography or imagining something that is sexually stimulating. It always involves another person, whether that person is real, virtual, or imagined.
Regardless of how real the person in question is, the person is real to us, that’s why it’s sexually stimulating. And when we masturbate to that person, we are not treating that person as a person should be treated, but we are treating him or her as an object, a tool to satisfy our sexual desires.
Over time, as we masturbate regularly to the same, but most probably different, images of women or men, we begin to experience a change within us. We may or may not notice it, but our fantasy world overlaps our real world. We begin to treat people in our real world not as people, but as objects to be used for our own gratification, not necessarily sexual. We begin to treat people as things instead of people.
This is the real harm that masturbation, oral sex, mutual masturbation (such as the use of contraceptives or when a woman does it for a man), does to us. Our seemingly harmless masturbation sessions have a gradual effect on us that makes it difficult for us to relate to people as people. As such, it closes the door to love, which is the giving of oneself to another person, and turns relationships of love (giving and receiving of each other) into relationships of lust (using one another). It is wholly possible for two people to be in a relationship of mutual lust.
The Church treats all these as enemies of love, and as a defender of love, the Church cannot help but do its best to prevent people from falling into the trap of lust. Unfortunately, until recent years, the Church only knew how to forbid people without properly explaining why it is wrong for people to engage in such activities. That is slowly changing as more and more people are finding their answers in Theology of the Body, which essentially teaches us how to experience God in our human bodies, and what God originally intended for all human experience, including that of sex, which is described as sacred.
I hope this has helped to answer some of your questions. Feel free to ask more, and I’ll do my best to answer them.
God bless,
Catholic Writer
[...] was commenting in another post in my main blog that when a ‘red-blooded male’ goes for some time without [...]
wow, CW, i’m a brazilian 22 yo guy and your words are amazing. i’m not catholic, but i agree with ALL the things you appointed. I used to see pornoghrapy since my 12 years and, when i have my first computer, i find a enormous quantity of this material for free. When I was 20, I was engaged in a relationship. In the ends of the 3rd month, I led my girlfriend to this sexual curiosities. Now, reading your replies, CW, I can see that I used my girlfriend, a person who loves me for real, as an object of my pleasure. I’m really afraid that I will not be able to love anybody as a human. I’ve tried a lot of times stopped with this addiction, but when I try getting a strong commitment with God, devil starts to set a lot of traps, so I suppose I cannot explain that i fall in all of them. I’m unhappy because i’m so weak. As Bible says: be hot or be cold, do not be warm so I vomit you off. I’m unhappy to be always in the wall.
Hi Douglas,
These aren’t my words so much as they are Pope John Paul II’s, and Christopher West’s (www.christopherwest.com).
I too used to be addicted to porn, and those two words “used to” are important, because they tell you that it is something that can be overcome. A crucial thing to note is that you cannot do it alone. You need God’s help, and you need the help of the people who love you.
You are right when you say that the devil sets a lot of traps, which is why it is of great importance to find someone who can journey with you, look out for you, and help you stand up again when you fall down.
I have also found it useful to know the difference between lust and love:
- Lust is using another person for one’s own gratification;
- Love is giving oneself to another person.
I wrote a bit about it here:
http://catholicwriter.wordpress.com/2006/10/23/question-is-it-possible-to-overcome-addiction-to-pornography-and-masturbation/
And you can find more resources at this Porn Free directory: http://pornfree.wordpress.com
It is good to read more about what the addiction is so as to know what you are up against. But most important is to realise that you cannot overcome it alone; you don’t have the strength to face the devil alone.
God bless,
Catholic Writer
I was told, by a Priest, that engaging in oral sex but not to completion, with your married partner and with full consent from both parties is perfectly fine! The key words are ‘with your partner’ and ‘not to completion’. The act of making love between husband and wife is sacred ground, and any good catholic knows that the only way to consumate the act is when the man has his release inside of the woman. Any other act of ejaculation on the mans part is against Church policy.
You’re right there, Keith, but I would hesitate to call a Catholic who doesn’t know this, a bad Catholic.
God bless,
Catholic Writer
I do not believe oral sex is a sin or hand jobs in marriage and I do not believe contraceptives are a sin. Over 90% of Catholics use contraceptives, NFP simply does not work and people cannot afford to have 8 kids. Many people pretend they are pro NFP and use condoms and the withdrawal method themselves, there’a lot of liars in the Conservative branch. Many get paid to say they agree with the Church or to make money off a site and a book, but really they are just as much Cafteria Catholics as the rest of us. As a women it is my choice and decision when I have kids and how many not my husbands. I believe not using contraception is the thing that makes the women be treated as an object she is made into a rabbit, whose purpose is nothing to but to pop babies every year and as many as possible, that’s what being treated as an object is. If cardinals and bishops married contraception would be okayed, its because the effects of sex and the reality of childbirth has not hit these men, because the majority of men have not seen women in pain and in labor, or have not seen a women going through an epistiotomy. Contraception prevents all these evils from taking place. I believe the affects of child birth on a women’s body is more evil then condoms.
Hi Max,
100% of Catholics sin, but that does not make sin a right or good thing to do. As our Pope Benedict once said while he was a cardinal, “Truth is not determined by a majority vote.”
NFP is a scientific method that was developed over 30 years ago, and it is a proven method that works when it comes to delaying and achieving pregnancy.
I agree that not everyone can afford to have 8 kids, but the Church does not specify how many kids a couple is supposed to have, other than that they have as many as they can afford to have. She encourages couples to use NFP to space out their pregnancies when there is a grave reason to do so.
True, there are a lot of liars in the conservative branch, but that is the same for any other branch. I don’t know if people pretend to be pro-NFP but still use contraceptives, but unless I had solid evidence of it, I would not call them liars. Assuming that it is a bad thing to be a cafeteria Catholic, would you not say that we are no better than other people then? Is it not a case of a pot calling the kettle black?
It’s a very sad thing to say that as a woman, it is your choice when you have kids and how many, and not your husband’s, because without the help of your husband, you can’t get pregnant in the first place (unless you are not faithful in your marriage). Pregnancy is something that is achieved by both husband and wife, not by husband alone or by wife alone. It is a cooperative act of love that spouses undertake together.
If you say that contraception is the thing that prevents women from being treated like a baby-making machine, then you have to know that contraception turns women into sex objects as well. Since life-giving is separated from sex, men can easily go ahead and have sex with any woman with little fear of pregnancy. This means sex with other women as well, since there is no more pregnancy to be worried about. And we know that adultery is one of the main causes of breaking up a marriage.
Do you know that 50% of marriages in America in which contraceptives are used end up in divorce? Compare that to the 0.2% of couples who use NFP that end up in divorce. Bear in mind that these couples that use NFP are not Catholics. They use NFP because they are health-nuts, and NFP is the only means of family planning that has no negative side-effects. In addition, it is the only means of family planning in the first place, because in addition to delaying pregnancy, it can also help a couple to achieve pregnancy. Contraceptives can only prevent pregnancy, but cannot help a couple, say with low-fertility, to achieve pregnancy.
Another effect of contraceptives is to have people look at pregnancy as a disease, and children as a burden. Like you say, many people feel that the effects of childbirth on a woman’s body is evil. How can bringing new life to the world be an evil thing? That is a completely warped idea of what is good and what is bad. The next thing we will say is that killing children is a good thing. But wait, we are already doing that! 40-50 million children have been killed through abortion in the past 40 years. Now we are looking at infanticide as well, killing children who are not perfect e.g. with mental illnesses or deformities. We are also killing old people who seem to have no more use for society and are nothing but burdens, and we frame it nicely as ‘mercy killing’.
The reason why our modern society has lost its moral compass is because we only look at the intention and the effect produced. If we have a good intention to carry out the action, and a good effect is produced from the action, then the action must we good, or so we say. But it does not take into account the reality that the action itself must be good as well, in order for the whole thing to be good. Killing is never a good thing, and neither is preventing pregnancy without a grave reason. It has never been good, and the whole world thought so too only until around the 1960s, when we started to have a change in culture. This change in culture resulted in us losing sight of the morality of our actions, focusing only on the intention and the effect.
There is much more to be said on this topic, but I believe I’ve addressed most of the issues you brought up in your comment. Feel free to dialogue further.
God bless,
Catholic Writer