Is contraception blocking grace, can condoms be moral during chemotherapy, and what does same-sex attraction mean for my masculinity? | ACW355
Ask Christopher West
Theology of the Body Institute
4.9 • 549 Ratings
🗓️ 20 October 2025
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Questions answered this episode:
- As I understand it, sacraments need the correct form and matter to be valid. What about marriage? I wonder if true marital sex is part of that form and matter, and if using contraception or not being open to life disrupts the grace that flows through the sacrament. In our marriage, we’ve experienced deep grace through healthy sexual intimacy and NFP, and I sense this grace comes not just from avoiding sin, but directly from the physical marital union that’s healed and unified us after years of brokenness.
- My husband of 25 years is battling aggressive cancer and undergoing chemo, which will lead to erectile dysfunction. His doctors say we must use condoms if we want to be intimate during treatment because the chemicals could harm me. We’ve never used contraception and don’t want to commit mortal sin. We’re in our late 40s and still practicing NFP. Given our situation, can we morally use condoms during chemo for safety, or would that violate Church teaching?
- I’m a man in my early twenties who’s long experienced strong same-sex attraction, though I also feel a more romantic, non-sexual attraction toward women. I’ve tried to see the beauty of men as a reflection of God’s design, yet I feel shame and confusion, wondering if this admiration is wrong. I want to be a true man, love women rightly, and one day marry and have a family. What should I do with these feelings and desires?
Resources:
Sexual Integration & Redemption Course
List of trusted counselors & psychologists
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Ask Christopher West is a weekly podcast in which Theology of the Body Institute President Christopher West and his beloved wife Wendy share their humor and wisdom, answering questions about marriage, relationships, life, and the Catholic faith, all in light of John Paul II’s beautiful teachings on the Theology of the Body.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From the Theology of the Body Institute, this is the Ask Christopher West podcast. |
| 0:19.3 | So I was given a talk the other night locally. |
| 0:24.4 | Yeah. |
| 0:25.4 | That's not the way we usually start. |
| 0:26.9 | No. |
| 0:27.5 | But I just jumped right in. |
| 0:28.6 | Hey, everybody. |
| 0:29.3 | Hi, listeners. |
| 0:31.8 | I was given this talk. |
| 0:33.8 | And a guy came up to me at the end of the talk to talk to me. |
| 0:37.9 | There's a lot of talks in that talk. |
| 0:41.4 | And this is the reason we continue to do what we do. |
| 0:47.8 | He was rattled. |
| 0:50.3 | And I could tell, like, the furniture inside his brain was getting rearranged and it was painful, but exciting at the same time. |
| 1:01.2 | And he said, I've been Catholic my whole life. This is a guy who took his faith seriously. |
| 1:05.6 | Like he wanted to be a good Catholic. |
| 1:09.6 | But gosh, how can you be a good Catholic when you don't know what the Catholic faith is in its very essence? |
| 1:16.4 | And I'm not exaggerating here. |
| 1:18.7 | This guy thought his whole life that his body was bad, like fundamentally bad, and his passions were fundamentally evil and if we think that we don't know what |
| 1:34.0 | Christianity is in its essence and this is not to wag fingers at anybody this is not to scold |
| 1:40.2 | anybody or shame anybody is to turn the lights on so we can see what Christianity really is. |
| 1:46.7 | Christianity really is the life of the Trinity manifested in the human body. That's what it is. |
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