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Today is the 40th anniversary of Humanae vitae. Though Paul VI has been and is widely regarded as a less than stellar supreme pontiff, this encyclical gives evidence of the supernatural foundations of the Church: even in the face of overwhelming cultural pressure, Paul VI stood by the perennial truths of the natural law. Even a critic of modern Rome as keen as Romano Amerio had words of praise for Paul VI in connection with Humanae vitae:
It becomes possible to separate conjugal relations from procreation, if one loses sight of the fact that the essential coexistence of the two ends of marriage means that in order to express a perfect union, conjugal relations must remain open to their natural procreative effect. But people now imagine that the full union in which marriage consists can in fact be separated from its natural effect, which is the generation of new life. This view was supported strongly by the majority of the advisory committee which Paul VI set up to examine the question, but the traditional doctrine was maintained despite its opinion. Humanae vitae and Mysterium fidei are the outstanding documents of Paul VI’s pontificate, because in the latter the Pope upheld the core of supernatural dogma, and in the former he upheld the core of the natural law, that is, by the two combined, he upheld the two levels of truth that the Church must maintain.
Humanae vitae is the document that most bitterly manifested the divisions in the Church, and was thus the most painful and, for the Pope personally, the most glorious act of his pontificate.
Unfortunately, this document was not able to stop the headlong plunge of many Catholics into mortal sin, essentially out of the Church, and into a new era of contraception, abortion, and engineered families.
George Weigel on pages 206-210 of his authorized biography of Pope John Paul II says that part of the document’s failure to persuade was owing to the fact that it insufficiently incorporated the type of personalist moral reasoning that Cardinal Wojtyla and a number of Polish theologians had put together in defense of the traditional doctrine in what was called the “Kraków memorandum.” But was John Paul II our savior when given a chance to explain the Church’s sexual ethics during his own pontificate? Or did NFP supplant the use of artificial contraception in the marriages of many Catholics who desired to be faithful to the Church? Notice what Weigel says about this “Krakow memorandum”:
The Krakow commission memorandum, which reflected the thinking of Cardinal Wojtyla and the moral analysis of Love and Responsibility, tried to develop a new framework for the Church’s classic position on conjugal morality and fertility regulation . . . .
This openness [to new life] had to be lived responsibly. “The number of children called into existence cannot be left to chance,” according to the Krakow memorandum, but must be decided “in a dialogue of love between husband and wife.” Fertility regulation, in fulfillment of the “duty” to plan one’s family, must therefore be done through a method that conformed to human dignity, recognized the “parity between men and women,” and involved the “cooperation” of the spouses.
As far as I can see, if John Paul succeeded in instilling a new sexual ethical practice, he succeeded in convincing faithful, practicing, Novus Catholics that NFP is the way to go; indeed, responsible husbands and wives wouldn’t think of doing anything other than NFP. The result is that the average (faithful) Catholic has a distorted notion of the role that NFP can play in a morally healthy marriage.
I think it’s clear that, to a certain extent, elements within the Church did bow to the pressures of the mid and late 20th century: while everyone was saying, “You’d better not leave your child-bearing to chance!” certain Catholic theologians and philosophers and prelates said, “Ah, we know! For shame! we wouldn’t do that. But look, we have this ethical method to do what the rest of you are doing!” But the problem isn’t the method; the problem is the end for which the method is employed.
For us who are traditional Catholics, one lesson for the present is that we can’t let these people outflank us by such expressions as “the number of children called into existence cannot be left to chance.” When I have sex with my wife, I’m not playing roulette; rather, I’m engaging in a part of the unitive aspect of marriage which I know is essentially united to the procreative aspect. Further, I’m not calling any children into existence. As Roman Amerio would likely have pointed out, creatures do not have the power to create (Summa Theologica, Prima Pars, Q. 45, a. 5). By marrying, I opened my life up to as many children as God may send to me and my wife. This is, I believe, common sense, and it flows from the Scriptural imperative to be fruitful and multiply.
Thank you, Paul VI, for your witness to the world in this encyclical! Let us pray that today a more fruitful understanding of marriage is embraced by all the Christian people.
St. Louis-Marie de Montfort,
Pope St. Pius X,
St. Joseph,
St. Ambrose of Milan,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
St. Francis (and St. Clare),
St. Catherine of Siena,
St. Alphonsus Ligouri,
St. John Chrysostom,
Iosephe, you do a grave injustice to John Paul II when you suggest that his main accomplishment with regards to marriage and sex was to persuade people to have less children. His contributions to the Catholic understanding of marriage and family were significant,in an area where further teaching was sorely needed. Marriage is one subject about which the saints and Doctors have relatively little to say, in part no doubt because they regarded marriage as a lesser state anyway, and in part because extended treatments of such questions seemed less necessary in days when more was taken for granted. But particularly in our day, when traditional ideas about family are dissolving at an alarming rate, apologetic explanations are very much needed, and this was one of the major accomplishments of theology of the body. How much do you know about it, seriously, except for this old bone about overuse of NFP? Have you read Love and Responsibility, or any of Hildebrant’s works on marriage? It’s not just propaganda urging people to decrease their family sizes; there is some good stuff in there.
I know we’ve been through this a thousand times, but playing with fertility is an old, old game; now that our power in this regard is increased, careful theological treatment of it — as well as useful teaching aids to explain Church teaching — were very necessary. Let’s not spoil the happy occasion by fixating on the misplaced enthusiasms of a few!
Great write up and analysis!
How about a reflection on HE Bishop Tissier de Mallerais’ interview with Angelus?
My favorite part was -
Q: Which books do you think are most essential for the faithful in these days?
Tissier de Mallerais: For all, their missal (Mass book) and their catechism. For young men, books on the social kingship of Christ. For young ladies, books on cooking, sewing and how to furnish a home.
I was surprised not to see a response from the Cornell Society’s Ladies Auxiliary on the WDTPRS blog about what I’m sure a modernist would call the good bishop’s “misogyny.”
Yes, I have read Love and Responsibility, cover to cover. I read it, though, before I had become indoctrinated by the evil traditionalist movement. I’m not sure what my reaction would be now.
At any rate, I was intrigued when I came across that passage in Weigel - I find such language rather alarming. Catechesis on marriage and family is a beautiful thing, but when we start bowing to pressures to regulate the birth of our children - and the only reason given is so that their births be not left to chance - that creeps me out.
In any case, Clara, we all know that NFP can only be used for grave reasons, and so attempts to instill NFP into the marriages of all Catholics is, at the least, misguided, though if it is never misused, what a great thing!
Yes, the old exception becomes the rule which is so typical of the post-Vatican II Catholic world.
By the way, how many people suffering under true grave circumstances are going to be thinking about sex, never mind even NFP? For instance, you’ve found yourself caught in the middle of genocidal civil war; of course everyone’s first thought is to break out the thermometer and the NFP charts.
Heh heh, all right, Iosephe. I’m not really spoiling for another fight about this. Of course I do agree with you that NFP is sometimes overused to limit family size for no very serious reason, and yes, Weigel’s way of putting it is very icky.
It’s icky in part because it cedes to “chance” what some of us would like to think is in “God’s” hands, but also because it seems to pass over a critical part of the whole process — the part that embraces the mysterious nature of the origin of life, and submits to whatever God has in store. As you point out, we cannot simply “call” children into existence at will; God Himself must decide to take a hand in this. Avoiding pregnancy through NFP is not inherently and directly a violation of the natural law, but it can destroy the appropriate spirit in which we should approach something so momentous, insofar as we start to view childbearing as a kind of precise science, to be manipulated for our own convenience.
Most of all, Weigel’s words are offensive because they imply that people who have not taken pains to learn about fertility are somehow not consciously or deliberately participating in procreation in a way that NFP users are. And that, of course, is ridiculous. Just because you weren’t conscious that this particular marital act was especially likely to lead to conception, doesn’t mean that you just left the whole business “to chance.” All normal adults understand the basic facts of human reproduction; if they conceive children in inappropriate ways (i.e. out of wedlock) we certainly don’t accept the excuse, “Well, it was just chance.”
What I so often come back to in these conversations is that there are two ways of improperly appreciating the mystery of procreation — one, by trying to make it into a direct and controllable science, and the other, by failing to enjoy and marvel over the fact that we ourselves do consciously and willingly participate in procreation. Children are conceived through a particular and deliberate act of their parents — one that we don’t need to engage in at all, and one that we are very well aware has as one possible consequence the begetting of new life. A person who told himself, “I must not try to beget children, because that is God’s prerogative and not mine. Therefore, I will engage in marital relations only when physical desire compels me, or as a way of fostering intimacy with my spouse, but not specially in hopes of begetting a child,” would not have understood properly. It is the right and privilege of a married person to “try” to beget new life; this is one of the great honors that has been granted him in assuming the married state. He must be mindful, certainly, that his efforts are only one part of the equation, and yet they are an important and necessary part of the equation, and that’s part of the mystery too.
It seems clear to me that some level of rational deliberation must always have been exercised by married couples with respect to family size, whether that’s, “I don’t feel ready for another pregnancy right away, so perhaps I’d better keep nursing,” or, “it’d be hard for her to have a baby while I’m away at sea — perhaps I’d best sleep on the floor until I leave so I don’t get tempted,” or “one more glass of wine and he’ll be in a mood to try for a son!” or “I’ve heard that these herbs might increase my chances of conceiving.” When I was in the Peace Corps in Uzbekistan, I heard all manner of theories about what would make people more fertile or less, or increase the chances of having a son or a daughter — I’m convinced that all societies have had this sort of thing to one degree or another. Of course, a good percentage of the Uzbek ones were just silly superstitions, whereas we have much better information, and together with more effective methods come more pressing moral questions, and a need for more nuanced treatment of them. Sometimes we may yearn for simpler, more ignorant times, not totally unreasonably, but I guess my feeling is just that that cat’s *way* out of the bag by now… so it’s good that we have writers like Hildebrandt and, yes, JPII, to help us work through the questions, and approach marriage in the right spirit.
Clara, I’d point out that if you look back at my post, they’re not Weigel’s words - he’s simply quoting the words of the “Krakow memorandum”, to which, presumably, Karol Wojtyla contributed in part.
Okay, yes, well I’m not big on that way of putting things. I’m also not big on over-emphasizing the cooperation, parity etc. involved in NFP… at least, it needs to be clear that those things are not per se the justification of this method of postponing pregnancy. They are perhaps accompanying benefits, and we shouldn’t be surprised about that because moral living almost always brings lots of benefits along with it, but it’s not as if artificial birth control would become okay if it could be practiced in a “cooperative” way that “recognized parity between men and women.” I think that often gets confused.
Anyway, like so many things of this era, the language and emphases are not always right on target. But they’re playing the right game.
I started to launch into a monster explanation of why that is the case, but it occurred to me that maybe I should put this reflection into a separate post. So maybe you’ll get that later, if I finish it. :)