Blessed Paul VI at an audience in October 1977. (Ambrosius007/Wikipedia)
LA Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron: Pontiff who gave us 'Humanae vitae'
nearly 50 years ago accurately predicted the consequences of turning
away from the Church’s classic teaching on sex
This coming July, we will mark the 50th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s deeply controversial encyclical letter Humanae vitae. I
won’t bore you with the details of the innumerable battles,
disagreements, and ecclesial crises that followed upon this text.
Suffice it to say that this short, pithily argued letter became a
watershed in the post-conciliar Catholic Church and one of the most
significant points of contention between liberals and conservatives. Its
fundamental contention is that the moral integrity of the sexual act is
a function of the coming together of its “procreative and unitive”
dimensions. That is to say, sexual intercourse is ethically upright only
in the measure that it is expressive of love between married partners
and remains open to the conception of a child. When, through a conscious
choice, the partners introduce an artificial block to procreation—when,
in a word, they separate the unitive and procreative finalities of the
sexual act—they do something which is contrary to God’s will.
I would like to draw particular attention to a remarkable passage in Humanae vitae,
namely section 17, in which Paul VI plays the prophet and lays out,
clearly and succinctly, what he foresees as consequences of turning away
from the Church’s classic teaching on sex. Though he is convinced that
artificial contraception is morally bad in itself, he’s also persuaded
that it would, in the long run, adversely affect general societal
attitudes regarding sex. Here is a first observation:
“Let them consider how easily this course
of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general
lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully
aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and
especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives
to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them
to break that law.”
Does anyone doubt that, in the last fifty
years, we have seen a profound attenuation of marital fidelity? Could
anyone possibly contest that the last half century has witnessed a
significant breakdown of the institution of marriage? Is anyone so blind
as not to see that during the last five decades “a lowering of moral
standards” has taken place? To be sure, there are multiple causes of
these declines, and certainly not all the blame can be ascribed to
artificial contraception. However, Paul VI was intuiting something of
great moment, namely, that once we commenced to redefine the nature of
the sexual act, we placed ourselves on a very steep and slippery slope
toward a complete voluntarism, whereby we utterly determine the meaning
of sexuality, of marriage, and even of gender. And the rapid rise in
pornography use, the sexual exploitation of children, and human
trafficking are functions of this same arbitrariness. What was only
vaguely envisioned and feared fifty years ago is now accepted more or
less as a matter of course.
In that same section, Paul VI continues to prophesy:
“Another effect that gives cause for
alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive
methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her
physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere
instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer
considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and
affection.”
In the post-Weinstein era, we hear
practically every day of another celebrity who has treated women with
disrespect, turning them indeed into objects for his own use and
manipulation. The entire society is rightly outraged at this behavior,
but precious few cultural commentators have noted the link between this
kind of objectification and the conscious disassociation of the twin
ends of the sexual act. When we are permitted casually to separate love
from procreation—or as one analyst had it, to sever the link between sex
and diapers—we place ourselves on a short road to reducing sexual
intercourse to a form of self-indulgent recreation.
Section 17 of Humanae vitae concludes with a startling act of prescience regarding the political implications of countenancing artificial contraception:
“Finally, careful consideration should be
given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those
public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law.
Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems
affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are
regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular
family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring
those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should
they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on
everyone.”
What might have seemed exaggerated,
perhaps even slightly paranoid, in 1968 is now a commonplace. The HHS
Mandate, which would require even Catholic institutions to provide
insurance coverage for contraception and abortifacients, has been so
aggressively pursued that even the Little Sisters of the Poor found
themselves battling for their rights in court. Pope Francis, an ardent
admirer of Paul VI, has picked up on this theme, bemoaning the
“ideological colonization” that takes place when the Western powers
attempt, through threat of economic sanctions, to impose their sexual
program on the underdeveloped world.
Full story at Catholic World Report.
