Humanae Vitae: "failure" to freedom.

In the Dominican publication Doctrine and Life for January 1999, is an article by Sean Fagan, S.M., entitled, "Humanae vitae, 30 Years On." The author follows in the footsteps of Charles Curran, Hans Kung, Gregory Baum and a long list of others in defending what is arguably the greatest moral evil in the world: the contraceptive act. While the Church celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the encyclical Humanae vitae with gratitude and joy, the dissenters continue their rebellion with thirty-year-old arguments. All they proved is that Sean Fagan and companions are not in full communion with the Church.

Authority

Fagan complains that "any debate on the subject quickly moves on to the question of authority and obedience, and acceptance of the condemnation (of contraception) is often seen as a test of loyalty." This is as it should be. As Cardinal Newman pointed out, the essence of revealed religion must be authority. That authority comes through Christ to Peter and his successors to us by direct line.

The Fathers of Vatican II tell us that the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and pastor of the whole Church, has full, supreme and universal power over the Church; and he can always exercise this power freely (cf.Lumen gentium, n.22).

In Humanae vitae Pope Paul VI invoked the authority of Christ (cf. n.6). Pope John Paul II has made it clear that its teaching is supported by the authority of Christ: "I myself today, with the same conviction of Paul VI, ratify the teaching of this encyclical, which was put forth by my Predecessor by virtue of the mandate entrusted to us by Christ" (Address to American Bishops at Chicago, Oct. 8, 1979).

Now we know how to evaluate the voices of bishops or theologians who, by virtue of their own authority, question that of the Pope. Do we listen to the Pope or to the mini-popes who usurp his divinely delegated role?

There is one more consideration of the gravest importance. As Archbishop Chaput of Denver, Colorado, said in his pastoral letter on the thirtieth anniversary of Humanae vitae: "Selective dissent from Humanae vitae soon fueled broad dissent from Church authority and attacks on the credibility of the Church herself. The irony is that the people who dismissed Church teaching in the 1960s soon discovered that they had subverted their own ability to pass on anything along to their children"--if they had any.

Conscience

Many have used an erroneous notion of conscience as an escape-hatch from the sacrifices demanded by Humanae vitae. Sean Fagan sees many Catholics agonizing over "the gap between Church teaching and the demands of responsible parenthood" and are "now experiencing a special presence of the Spirit in joy and peace and a good conscience."

The Holy Spirit does not guide any couple into the contraceptive act.

There is no gap between Church teaching and the demands of responsible parenthood. Nor is conscience a source of truth. As Cormac Burke has said, truth is independent of conscience, but conscience is not independent of truth. In moral matters, by the Will of God, the Church is the teacher of truth. A good conscience is informed and then conformed, or it is deformed with the frightful consequences inherent in objective evil. One of the greatest theologians of our time wrote, "It is nonsense for a Catholic to set up in opposition to the authority of the Encyclical the authority of his own personal conscience" (Cardinal C. Journet, The Light of the Encyclical, L'Osservatore Romano, Oct. 10, 1968, p.10). It is nonsense, but still repeated, as we now observe.

We find the true doctrine of responsible parenthood in Vatican II: "The moral aspect of any procedure must be determined by objective standards. Sons of the Church may not undertakemethods of regulating procreation which are found blameworthy by the teaching authority of the Church in its unfolding of the divine law "(Gaudium et spes, n.51).

The Holy Spirit set against the Pope

It is strange, even perverse, that dissenters seem to find the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, wherever they wish to find it, but not in the authoritative voice of Christ's Vicar.

Fagan implies that the bishops of Vatican II were in some way opposed to the traditional teaching against contraception. He says, "It is difficult to accept that the Holy Spirit would ignore the world gathering of bishops in the Second Vatican Council."

But nothing in the documents of Vatican II opposes the teaching on Humanae vitae. Pope John XXIII had withdrawn the subject of the Pill and contraception from the Council. Pope Paul VI inherited this decision. The Vatican II Fathers, on Nov. 20, 1964, by 1592 votes to 427, deferred decisions on marital morality to the Pope.

What the bishops of Vatican II said was: "Married people should realize that in their behaviour they may not simply follow their own fancy but must be ruled by conscience--and conscience ought to be conformed to the law of God in the light of the teaching authority of the Church which is the authentic interpretation of divine law" (Gaudium et spes, n.50).

Fagan says it is difficult to accept that the Holy Spirit would pay no attention to the special papal commission set up to study the question. The Holy Spirit, we can be certain, guided the Pope to give very special attention to that papal commission and to accept the opinions of those members of the commission who upheld the truth of the Church's tradition. This commission did not play the major part in the evaluative process. The Holy Father wrote to the bishops of the world asking for a detailed report, giving not only their opinions but those of the theological experts in their dioceses. This request was labeled "sub secreto." I helped one bishop in the preparation of his report.

Fagan says it is difficult to accept that the Holy Spirit would allow the thousands of testimonies from committed married Catholics from all over the world to sink into oblivion. What was the nature of these testimonies? We do not know. We do know that committed married Catholics with properly formed consciences would never contracept. The Holy Father had as advisor the teaching and experience of all past ages to prophesy the evil fruits of the contraceptive act.

Fagan appears not to admit that the Roman Pontiff has full, supreme and universal power over the whole Church; a power which he can always exercise unhindered (Lumen gentium, a. 22).

Bishops against the Church

Against the encyclical Fagan quotes two bishops.

1. Cardinal Konig

We are told that Cardinal Konig, retired Archbishop of Vienna, in a debate with Cardinal Ratzinger in 1992, dismissed "the irritating distinction between artificial and natural contraception." That the distinction is irritating to Cardinal Konig is not an argument.

The Church teaches "that it is licit to take into account the natural rhythm immanent in the generative functions--the Church is coherent with herself when She considers recourse to the infecund periods to be licit while at the same time condemning, as being always illicit, the use of means directly contrary to fecundation" (Humanae vitae, n. 16).

Pope Paul VI was confirming the teaching of Pius XII and it has also been confirmed by Pope John Paul II. Numerous authors have capably demonstrated the essential difference between the contraceptive act and abstention from intercourse for valid reasons (cf. Janet E. Smith, Humanae vitae, a Generation Later, Catholic University of America Press, pp. 118-128). The difference is between virtue and vice, and may be that between heaven and hell.

2. Bishop Christopher Butler

We are told that Bishop Christopher Butler, "one of the most respected participants in the Second Vatican Council, asserted that the fact that the encyclical was not 'received' by the Church could be seen as 'invalidating' its teaching."

Whether or not Bishop Butler was much respected at Vatican II is not the question. Perhaps he was respected because then he upheld Church teaching. He said: "The test of loyalty and orthodoxy is, and will always be, sincere assent to the decisions of the Magisterium"(The Tablet, Sept. 28, 1962). It was only after the Council that he turned away from loyalty and orthodoxy.

Bishop Butler is in error in stating that the encyclical was not received by the Church. It was received by the Church when Paul VI signed it. The Pope has the right to speak in the name of the Church (Lumen gentium, n. 22). He exercised that right in the encyclical: "The Church teaches that each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life" (Humanae vitae, n.11).

Whether Humanae vitae was accepted by observance is not pertinent. Ten billion sinners do not invalidate the Ten Commandments. Many of Christ's disciples did not accept His teaching on the Eucharist because it was "a hard saying."

The principal reason Humanae vitae has not been received by observance is that it has not been taught as the Pope requested, "without compromise". Dissenting bishops, theologians and priests have blown uncertain and discordant trumpets and even encouraged the rejection of the encyclical.

3. Episcopal Conferences

Fagan says: "Many Episcopal conferences (surely a part of the teaching Church) issued pastoral statements to help people understand the encyclical and they considerably softened the declaration of paragraph 14 condemning all artificial means of contraception."

Bishops' conferences as well as individual bishops are a part of the teaching Church when they are faithful to it. About twelve national conferences of bishops so distorted the teaching of the encyclical as to effectively destroy it. Their statements were by that tragic process reduced from collegial and magisterial status to the level of private dissenting opinion which the faithful person was obliged to reject.

Theologians against the Church

We are told that shortly after the encyclical was published, over six hundred top US theologians signed a document saying that "spouses may responsibly decide according to their conscience that artificial contraception in some circumstances is permissible and indeed even necessary to preserve and foster the value and sacredness of their marriage."

More precisely, this was the statement issued by Father Charles Curran on July 29, 1968, who by then had mustered support from seventy-seven "theologians." The encyclical had been signed on July 25, 1968 and many of these "theologians" had not yet read it. The unscholarly nature of the American dissent is described by Msgr. George Kelly in The Battle for the American Church (Doubleday and Co., 1979).

Dissenting theologians included brilliant men like Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan. There were brilliant defenders of the encyclical like Cardinal Charles Journet, Jean Guitton, and Dietrich and Alice Von Hildebrand. Nor were dissenters always dissenters. Edward Schillebeeckx, for example, said in 1963: "It is unthinkable that in such an important question of daily life the Church could err in its solemn teaching." But by 1968 he, too, had joined the opposition.

It is evident that brilliance is no guarantee of Catholic orthodoxy nor is it an obstacle to it. It is evident also that only by authority could the issue be settled. Before the encyclical that later arch-advocate of contraception Fr. F.X. Murphy wrote, "What seems obvious, is that the issue cannot be solved by logical argument alone. What the Catholic people and the world want is a clear statement" (The Tablet, May 11, 1968).

The Catholic Church has the competency to decide the role of the Catholic theologian. She has done this in unambiguous terms. The right role of the theologian is always pursued in communion with the Magisterium and never apart from it (cf. Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, n.6; see also the encyclical Veritatis splendor, n. 110).

Pope John Paul II excoriates dissenting theologians--"What is taught by the Church on contraception does not belong to material freely debatable among theologians." Those who argue otherwise "in open contrast with the law of God, authentically taught by the Church, guide couples down a wrong path" (L'Osservatore Romano, June 6, 1987).

What then is the state of those in dissent? They are not Catholic theologians. Bishop B.C. Butler once said: "the Roman Church teaches that schism is a grave sin and that a schismatic is one who refuses to be subject to the Holy See" (The Idea of the Church, p. 43). Canon 751 of the Code of Canon Law defines schism as "the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him." Do not dissenters from Humanae vitae refuse submission to the Roman Pontiff?

The fruits of dissent: prophecies fulfilled

Pope Paul VI predicted the effects of the contraceptive mentality:

1. Widespread use of contraception would lead to conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality.

2. Man would lose respect for woman and would tend to consider her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment and no longer as his respected and beloved companion.

3. Widespread acceptance of contraception would be a weapon in the hands of public authorities who take no heed of "moral exigencies."

4. The more contraception was accepted, the more man would believe he had unlimited sovereignty over his body.

All of Paul VI's prophecies have been fulfilled. The contraceptive mentality has led to spiritual, moral, psychological, sociological, political and even demographic evils. Many competent authors have detailed these effects; e.g., Janet E. Smith in her Introduction to Why Humanae vitae was Right (Ignatius Press, 1993). See also "The Scandal of the Century: Thirty Years of Prophecy Ignored" by John Mallon in Inside the Vatican, Aug./Sept., 1998).

Dissenters are silent when faced with the evident evils consequent upon widespread contraceptive behaviour. They ignore the family dissension caused when one spouse resists contraceptive use and the other insists on it. They do not speak of the millions of abortions caused by contraceptive chemicals, the Pill and devices like the IUD. They are silent about the evils of sterilization. They do not speak of the invalidity of many marriages occasioned by the contraceptive mentality. When one spouse or both intend to exclude the right to children either temporarily or perpetually, the marriage is null.

Contraception is not evil because of the many evils it spawns; but because it is evil in itself it has evil consequences. It destroys the procreative meaning of the marriage act. It is an affront to God's creative prerogative and the co-creative nature of the marital union. The awful consequences of rebellion against God's law of Life and Love are that wherever the teaching of Humanae vitae is not observed the family and the Church are dying.

Developments

Speaking of Humanae vitae, Sean Fagan says that Pope Paul VI "invited theologians and scientists to continue their research to find arguments that would convince people of the truth of his teaching." He claims that "In the past thirty years not a single new argument has been found to change the situation."

Paul VI did not invite scientists to find arguments that would convince people of the truth of his teaching. That was not in their competency. He asked them to pool their efforts to "explain more thoroughly the various conditions favouring a proper regulation of birth" (n.24). In this he was quoting directly from Vatican II (Gaudium et spes, n.52). He also referred to the wish of Pius XII that medical science might succeed in providing "a sufficiently secure basis for a regulation of birth founded on the observance of natural rhythm" (n.24).

Nor did the Pope in the encyclical invite theologians to find arguments that would convince people of the truth of his teaching. To priests he said: "Your first task--especially in the case of those who teach moral theology--is to expound the Church's teaching on marriage without ambiguity" (n.25).

Nevertheless, there has been considerable development in the disciplines which directly or indirectly affect the present debate. The medical and social sciences give a clearer picture of the evils following widespread contraceptive practice. There is development in understanding the role of the theologian; e.g., in the Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, May 29, 1990). The encyclical Veritatis splendor of August 6, 1993, fulfills its purpose "to state the principles for discerning what is contrary to sound doctrine" (n.30). The Church has clearly defined the unacceptability of dissent from authoritative teaching (cf. Cardinal Ratzinger's commentary on the motu proprio of John Paul II, Ad tuendam fidem of May 18, 1998).

There has been development in understanding the philosophical and theological bases of Humanae vitae. Pope John Paul II has contributed to this understanding in "Reflections on Humanae vitae", given in audiences from July 11, 1984, to Nov. 7, 1984. Some eminent scholars have contributed to our understanding of orthodox teaching; e.g., Cardinal Charles Journet, Ermingildo Lio, Dietrich and Alice Von Hildebrand, Cormac Burke, G.E.M. Anscombe, John M. Finnis, Carlo Caffarra, Janet E. Smith, Elizebieta Wojcik, and John F. Kippley.

It must be admitted that no developments or new insights will convince some dissenters. "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." That is precisely why we need the voice of authority and in this case divine authority. Cardinal Newman gives us this penetrating insight: "the sense of right and wrong, which is the first element in religion, is so delicate, so fitful, so easily puzzled, obscured, perverted, so subtle in its argumentative methods, so impressible by education, so biased by pride and passion, so unsteady in its course, that the Church, the Pope, the Hierarchy, are, in the divine purpose, the supply of an urgent demand." He says of the Pope, "The championship of the Moral Law and of conscience are his 'raison d'etre.'"

Humanae vitae is forever

Dissenting theologians are figuratively knocking their heads against a rock, the Rock of Peter. The Church has not, does not, and cannot change her teaching concerning the instrinsic evil of contraception.

When professor John T. Noonan wrote his book in 1966 on the history of the teaching on contraception, he expected that he might trace the teaching to the mid-eighteenth century. He found the doctrine against contraception taught by Clement of Alexandria at the end of the second or the beginning of the third century. In other words, the encyclical rightly refers to the "constant teaching of the Church" (n.1O).

In a footnote to Humanae vitae we are referred to these words of Pope Pius XII: "No alleged indication or need can convert an intrinsically immoral act into a moral and lawful one. This precept is as valid today as it was yesterday, and it will be the same tomorrow and always...."

Pope John Paul II affirms that "It is not, in fact, a doctrine invented by man; it was stamped in the very nature of the human person by God the Creator's hand and confirmed by Him in revelation. Calling it into question, therefore is equivalent to refusing God Himself the obedience of our intelligence" (Nov. 12, 1988).

Recovering the truth

Is not the solution to dissent, which is a rebellion against authority , the right use of authority?

In the midst of a crisis sparked by the Dutch Catechism, Pope Paul VI convened an extraordinary synod "On Dangerous Opinions and on Atheism". In the subsequent report of Oct. 28, 1967, Ratione habita, it was recommended that there be a firm exercise of authority in directing the Church of God "according to the mind of the Second Vatican Council to the exclusion of abuses and deviations whether in doctrinal matters or in pastoral or liturgical questions. Those who are rash or imprudent should be warned in all charity; those who are pertinacious should be removed from office."

Despite the grave wound inflicted on the Church by dissident theologians, the Synod of 1967 was largely ignored. After 1968, dissent from Humanae vitae ravaged the Church. Nor has there been a diminution of dissent since the Motu Propria of John Paul II Ad Tuendam fidem of 1998.

Is it not legitimate to ask:

1. Why would a Catholic review print an attack on the teaching of the Church as presented in Humanae vitae and a hundred other magisterial documents?

2. Why would the Superior of Father Sean Fagan permit him to continue attacking the teaching of the Church?

3. Why would the Superior of the great Dominican Order allow a publication under its authority to attack Humanae vitae, the very foundation of the Catholic family?

4. Should not the responsible bishop intervene?

All need to pray for the restoration of the teaching and observance of God's law on Life and Love.