|
Pope Paul
VI — a prophet for our time
PRAISED BE JESUS
CHRIST!
(Now and Forever)
We live in an age of surveys. They seem
to address every conceivable issue. Religious practice is often the
target of surveys, as is the Catholic Church. Surveys of contemporary
Catholics have revealed the fact that there are important differences
between generations. Perhaps at one time it could be assumed that
grandchildren shared the mindset of their grandparents when it came to
religion, but no longer.
Sociologists today classify Catholics as
pre-Vatican II (born before 1943), Vatican II (born between 1943 and
1960), post-Vatican II (born between 1961 and 1981) and millennial
Catholics (born after 1981). Older Catholics are typically more involved
in Church life and attend Mass more frequently than younger generations
of Catholics. In general, they tend to score higher on most survey items
that measure “commitment” to Catholicism. Knowledge about the Catholic
faith also varies by generation and is frequently greatest among older
Catholics, although this depends upon the topic. For example, knowledge
of Catholic teachings and obligations is usually higher among older
Catholics, but knowledge of the Bible is typically greater among younger
generations. Agreement with Church teachings is, again, often relatively
high among the oldest Catholics, the pre-Vatican II generation. To a
lesser extent this is also true of the millennial generation, currently
in their mid 20s and younger. Agreement with Catholic teaching is
typically lowest among the generation of Catholics who came of age
during the changes associated with the Second Vatican Council and among
post-Vatican II generation Catholics, though this too depends on the
teaching in question.
To get to my point, I suspect millennial
Catholics have no recollection of Pope Paul VI (he was pope between 1963
and 1978), but pre-Vatican II and Vatican II Catholics certainly
remember him. It could well be that the one thing that they recall about
Paul VI is a “motu proprio” he issued in 1968 titled Humanae Vitae
(“On Human Life”). Its subject: the regulation of birth — birth control.
Vatican documents come and go. Few of
them are read by mid-pew Catholics. But, Humanae Vitae, read or
not, impacted the Catholic Church with the force of a nuclear
detonation. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the issuance of that
document. It was July 25, 1968, to be exact.
As pastor of the Catholics of
Northcentral Indiana, I need to acknowledge that reality and once more
hold Humanae Vitae up to the Catholics of our Local Church. That
is what I will attempt to do in my column this issue and the issue of
Aug. 31. It is my hope and prayer that this effort will capture the
attention of those who have bought into the birth control culture that
dominates our society and dismisses anyone who suggests there is a
better way.
The publication of Humanae Vitae
was greeted with much criticism and widespread rejection. To the average
Catholic of the 1960s, Humanae Vitae’s prediction that
contraception would in some way be detrimental seemed far-fetched. The
pope urged people to consider how easily artificial birth control would
open the way to marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral
standards. He wrote: “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 that it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to
break that law.” Birth control, he cautioned, would lessen the reverence
men owe to women, and would reduce women to mere instruments for the
satisfaction of sexual desires. He also predicted that a birth control
culture would deliver into the hands of public authorities the power to
intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband
and wife. These possibilities seemed unimaginable 40 years ago, but
not today!
Recently, Bishop Victor Galeone of the
Diocese of St. Augustine in Florida pointed out that 40 years after
Humanae Vitae the moral landscape is strewn with a divorce rate that
has more than tripled, with huge increases in the cases of sexually
transmitted diseases and in pornography, especially on the Internet,
which has become a plague addicting millions annually. Meanwhile,
sterilization is forced on women in Third World countries. China’s
one-child policy is in the vanguard.
The fears of Pope Paul VI were on target.
Yet, there is still much confusion over and rejection of the teaching of
Humanae Vitae. It has often been noted that one of the seemingly
most “disagreed” with and talked about papal documents (Humanae Vitae)
is also one of the least read. As often as not, the judgments people
made about it were based on newspaper headlines and articles of dissent
that loudly condemned Paul VI as an obstructionist who had no business
telling people what they could or could not do in the privacy of their
bedroom.
Those, of course, who protest their
bedroom is off limits to God reflect either ignorance of or lack of
appreciation of the fact that the role of the Church is to articulate
divine and natural law. When the purposes of marriage are violated, it
is the responsibility of the Church to address that and explicate why
the violation is objectively sinful.
I recently read about a professor of
moral theology who at the beginning of each academic year asked her
students how many disagreed with the Church’s teaching on contraception.
Inevitably, the majority would raise their hands. She would then ask how
many had read the “motu proprio” Humanae Vitae. No hands would go
up. Next, she would ask how many had spent three or more minutes
thinking about whether contraception was moral or immoral. Again, none
of the hands went up. Finally, she asked why they were comfortable
disagreeing with the Church about a teaching they had never read about,
thought about, or prayed about.
The Catholic Church has always held, and
proclaims to this day, that each and every act of sexual intercourse
needs to be open to the possibility of conceiving a child. It also
teaches that genital activity is moral only between a male and female in
the bond of marriage. Birth control is wrong because it separates the
act of conception from sexual union. At the same time, the Church urges
responsible parenthood and counters artificial birth control with a way
for couples to remain faithful to God’s plan for marriage. It’s called
Natural Family Planning (NFP).
Dissent against the Church’s teaching on
contraception is found across all generations of the Catholic populace
in the United States as well as elsewhere. In January of this year, 190
dioceses were invited to participate in an annual Diocesan Natural
Family Planning Ministry Profile. The cumulative data shows the majority
of dioceses include Natural Family Planning in their marriage
preparation guidelines (87 percent, including the Diocese of
Lafayette-in-Indiana). However, newly married couples rarely take
Natural Family Planning seriously.
Why is it that married couples give
little or no consideration to Natural Family Planning? Is it that the
world’s whisperings are more powerful than the Gospel message which we
as Catholic Christians should be shouting?
Perhaps a look back at what actually took
place in 1968 and what the Church teaches about contraception is in
order. I will address that in my next column. |
