The Pope has missed the point, says Fr. He says the Pope accuses the Proportionalists of saying what they do not really say. Here is how it comes about. The object is the nature of the thing just in itself, i.e., adultery is wrong, and we say that without reference to who does it etc. The end is the purpose of the one who does it.
Circumstances vary widely.
His idea is that it is not always easy to define just which elements belong to the object. So in the case of killing, the object includes, he says, not just the mere physical act, but also the reason, e.g., killing in a just war is permissible. And in the case of lying, we may conceal the truth in diplomacy, for example, from those who have no right to it. Similarly, reasons McCormick, we should include enough in our definition of the object in speaking of contraception, or in speaking of gathering a sperm sample by self-stimulation for the sake of fertility testing. So we need to look at each one of the proposed cases separately.