St. Alphosus Liguori and His Scholastic Sources on Sensitive—but Controverted—Questions on Marital Chastity

The present essay considers a controversy that erupted over Christopher West’s claim that anal copulation is a morally permissible form of foreplay between spouses so long as the marital act culminates within the wife’s vagina. His thinking is that, so long as the possibility of begetting new life is not impeded, any act of sexual stimulation between spouses is morally licit. West was both criticized and defended by a number of prominent Catholic thinkers for his claim. What few appreciate, however, is that this matter was already thoroughly examined by many scholastic moral theologians and even by St. Alphonsus Liguori. In this essay, I consider some important scholastic authors’ thinking on this topic in order to shed more light on the contemporary debate.