Today is a very important anniversary: Humanae Vitae celebrates its fortieth anniversary. Forty years since Pope Paul VI gave the Church (and all the world) this great teaching document that reinforced ancient Christian teachings. For that anniversary, I wanted to say something profound and wonderful on the topic.
However, I am still working my way through it and am in no position to teach most of the world anything about it! What's a girl to do?
I'll tell you what! Bring in a guess blogger!
My friend Misty is a convert to the Catholic Faith and is an NFP instructor here in the Richmond Diocese. (Don't underestimate the difficulty of that job, by the way!) When I knew I'd never be ready to post anything intelligent on Humanae Vitae by this day, I called on her and asked if she'd ever written anything that I could share. (I didn't want her to do anything new, since she's already a little busy with three children to keep up with and is teaching at Vacation Bible School at my parish this week!) She sent this back, and it's perfect! (Of course!)
I now present to you: "Razing the Arguments for Dissent."
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Razing the Arguments for Dissent
Having lived with contraception for nearly a decade and experienced first-hand the devastating effects it had on my health, self-esteem, and marriage, it was no struggle for me to accept the Catholic Church’s teaching against contraception when I converted seven years ago.
But having been an NFP instructor for four years, as well as the coordinator of the NFP ministry for my diocese for half of that, I’ve found that most Catholics have a major chip on their shoulder about these teachings. What was a selling point for me is a stumbling block for them.
Admittedly, I’m a young’un so I wasn’t around when the Humanae Vitae bomb went off in 1968. But I’ve studied that time period considerably, and in my quest to convince people that the Church is right about contraception, I’ve also studied the arguments given by the “professional dissenters” in response to Humanae Vitae.
Although Humanae Vitae covers a wide range of reproductive rights and responsibilities, we all know it got most people’s panties in a knot because it reaffirmed that contraception is a sin. To celebrate the encyclical’s 40th anniversary, I’d like to offer some brief rebuttals of the major arguments offered against Humanae Vitae and in defense of contraception.
The surprising part isn’t that people came up with reasons like these, but that these reasons were offered by educated people, some of them even laboring under the title of “theologian” or “bishop.” I’m willing to bet most of you can see the flaws in their logic almost immediately.
Drum roll please….
Top 7 Reasons We Can Use Contraception (and Don’t Have to Follow the Church)
1. The teaching about contraception is not doctrine, so Catholics can morally dissent from this teaching.
2. The teaching is doctrine, but things have changed and the teaching no longer applies so we should discard it.
3. Since most Catholics disagree with the teaching and won’t follow it, we need to change church teaching to accommodate those individuals.
4. Since most Catholics disagree with the teaching, it must not be true.
5. Yes, contraception is a sin, but it’s not a very serious sin.
6. Contraception is moral because living without it is too hard.
And my personal favorite:
7. Whether contraception is immoral or not is irrelevant; Catholics can make up their own minds about moral issues.
Let’s take a look at them one by one.
1. The teaching about contraception is not doctrine, so Catholics can morally dissent from this teaching.
Considering the firestorm over this encyclical, you’d think contraception had always been a hotly contested moral issue among Christians. Not so. All Paul VI did was confirm the traditional Christian teaching about contraception.
Contraception was explicitly condemned by early Church Fathers. And, the apostolic tradition’s condemnation was upheld by all key Protestant Reformers; Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Wesley all strongly condemned contraception. This position was held by all Protestant denominations until 1930 when the Episcopal Church changed its mind about the issue.
Some believe the Pill was the first oral contraceptive, when in fact these agents have been around since several centuries before Christ. Back then, the primary way to prevent pregnancy was by ingesting certain plant extracts. As reported in Archeology magazine in April 1994, a weed called silphium was harvested so heavily for use as a contraceptive that it became extinct by the fourth century.
The Church has always and everywhere condemned contraception.
2. The teaching is doctrine, but things have changed and the doctrine no longer applies so we should discard it.
In 1975, Auxiliary Bishop of Mainz, Germany, Josef Reuss throws his full support behind a resolution that calls for decisions about birth control to be left up to a married couple. He claims that Humanae Vitae was never presented as an infallible teaching, and although the ban on contraception has been a constant teaching, the reasons for the teaching have changed.
Reuss is saying is that while the information contained in the encyclical has been held as true for Christians from the beginning, we don’t have to follow the directives because they were presented in a papal document instead of the Catechism. Huh?
Second, he asserts that something fundamental has changed about human sexuality to render God’s laws irrelevant in modern times, which is simply not true. As the minority opinion on the Pope’s commission stated so eloquently, the Church not only should not but cannot change its teaching regarding contraception because this is God's law, not ours.
3. Since most Catholics disagree with the teaching and will refuse to follow it, we should change the teaching to accommodate those individuals.
In October 1980, at the Synod of Bishops in Rome, Archbishop John Quinn of San Francisco calls for the Vatican to look into accommodating the large numbers of Catholics who disagree with the teaching and who use contraception.
So if Catholics personally disagree with a teaching and refuse to follow it, then the teaching itself must be flawed and changed to accommodate those individuals. Taken to its logical end, I guess this means that we’ll be doing away with several of the 10 Commandments since most people find nothing offensive about using the Lord’s name irreverently or skipping Mass from time to time.
4. Since most Catholics disagree with the teaching, it must not be true.
At a meeting of U.S. bishops in November 1990, Bishop Kenneth Untener reminds listeners that Catholicism contends that the Spirit acts through the entire people of God in developing doctrine and that when “people disagree with us, we cannot simply assume that it is mere opinion.”
Apparently, Untener is laboring under two profound misconceptions: 1) that he is bishop in the Episcopalian church, and 2) that the Catholic Church is a democracy and not a hierarchy. Catholic laity NEVER has been and never will be invited to give their two-cents in the formation of doctrine (which isn’t even what happened here, since Humanae Vitae was merely a confirmation of existing doctrine). And even if the laity were invited to help form doctrine, we already know what would happen—the same thing that has happened in some Protestant churches that have declared evils such as homosexuality and abortion not only morally neutral, but moral positives. What Untener is really suggesting is that the church be run by mob rule, with faith and morals decided by the majority, not by the Holy Spirit.
5. Yes, contraception is a sin, but it’s not a very serious sin.
First, contraception has always been a grave sin. It’s true that some sins are more serious than others, but they mistakenly place contraception in the venial sin category when in fact it is a mortal sin.
But more basically, sin is sin. Jesus didn’t enumerate the sins that are “freebies.” The commandment doesn’t differentiate between serious lies and the “little white ones.” Some sins are more harmful than others, but they all come between us and God. Too many people act like they’re A-okay with God as long as they haven’t murdered someone this week.
6. Contraception is moral because living without it is too hard.
In a 1993 statement, German bishops say that the church “has to help those, especially women, who feel their living conditions do not allow for practice of [periodic abstinence].”
In Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI expressed empathy for individuals who must live out its principles, but since when are we excused from our moral obligations simply because upholding them will be difficult? Jesus didn’t say, “Pick up your cross daily and follow Me but throw it off if it gets too heavy.” By this logic, we should also support abortions for women who believe their situation does “not allow for the practice of parenthood.”
In 1968, Bishop James P. Shannon even went so far as to resign because of his opposition to Humanae Vitae. Shannon said: “in my pastoral experience I have found that this rigid teaching (Humanae Vitae) is simply impossible to observe by many faithful and generous spouses, and I cannot believe that God binds men to impossible standards.”
Personally, I find the assertion that periodic abstinence is an “impossible standard” a strange statement to be coming from a man who took a lifetime vow of celibacy. I also invite Bishop Shannon to introduce himself to the millions of people worldwide—myself and my husband included—who practice this “impossible standard” on a monthly basis.
And finally we come to my personal favorite reason why Catholics do not have to follow Humanae Vitae:
7. Whether the teaching is doctrine is irrelevant; Catholics can make up their own minds about moral issues.
Obviously, these folks mistakenly believe the church declares contraception a sin to oppress them, when in fact it does so to protect them. It’s like the government setting speed limits. We aren’t allowed to make up our own minds about speed limits. If we do we may get pulled over and ticketed for it. The purpose of speed limits isn’t to oppress us; it’s to protect us from injuries and death. Likewise, the Church wants to protect us from objectifying each other and succumbing to the sin of lust, which is what happens when you insist someone eliminate an essential part of themselves (their fertility) for your convenience and pleasure. The Church also wants us to know that it’s wrong to shut God—the very author of life and love—out of the most intimate and sacred event in our marriages, the very arena of life and love, if you will.
And hey, if you don’t need the Church to guide you on moral issues, why are you in it? For that matter, why would you be in any church? I have never figured out why a person would stay in a church that tells them half of what they’re doing is wrong.
The Gift of the Holy Spirit
The Catholic Church has had the same teachings about marriage and our obligation to be open to life since Pentecost. The Church is led by the Holy Spirit, the spirit of truth, and in his mercy God has not allowed us to corrupt its teachings. Which is why the Catholic Church always had and always will proclaim contraception an objective evil and call men and women to true marital chastity regardless of circumstance or cultural pressure. Sure, society thinks we’re nuts for eschewing contraception. Some even think the Church is evil and misogynistic. But so what? Plenty of “edu-ma-cated” folks back then thought Jesus was crazy, too.
God knows we need these truths, even if we don’t want them. As an atheist who was drawn to Christ but unsure of where his church was, I found the Catholic Church’s unwavering teachings about contraception a flashing neon sign pointing me in the right direction.
May God bless any of you who read this with the grace to stay faithful, as well as the courage to share the truth with those who have not surrendered their will to the gentle mastery of Christ.
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Thanks, Misty! You're the best!
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