This coming weekend will mark the 30th anniversary of the release of Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI's great encyclical which reaffirmed the Roman Catholic Church's teaching on the use of artificial contraception. The date may likely pass without even a mention of the encyclical. Or if someone realizes the anniversary, the comments will likely be snide and condescending.
It might be something like an episode of Picket Fences a few years back in which a Protestant minister calls this Catholic teaching, "nuts." In that character's words the "birth control thing goes to a larger conspiracy ... [t]he Vatican wants the population explosion to help them achieve world domination." Certainly the commentary at this weekend's anniversary, if it does occur, will hardly be so patently offensive or anti-Catholic. But, many of the comments especially will be of such a nature; and, most like the Picket Fences episode, will have little grasp of the truth. Most will put forth that attitude that the Catholic Church just does not get it, that its teaching is thoroughly disconnected from modernity; it is an attitude which often springs from a lack of knowledge of the teaching which it proposes to criticize. It might be recognized that the church's teaching is not an easy teaching to accept especially coming from a culture which has accepted a path in a much different direction (Paul VI admits as much). My purpose in this column is simply to address some of the common misconceptions and offer some thoughts on what I believe to be Paul VI's wisdom. At the same time all of this is offered by one who cannot claim to be an expert.
One of the common misconceptions is that the Catholic Church teaches that a husband and a wife should have as many children as physically possible without taking any other motives into account. Snickers abound as people tell crass jokes of how Catholics like to keep their women barefoot and pregnant. But such trite jokes belie the church's true position. As Paul VI writes, there exist "serious motives" to space out births. These can be "physical," "psychological" or "external." Thus, the church is not teaching that all couples regardless of condition should be having as many children as possible. But from what one hears it would seem so.
Another common misconception is that Catholics believe that sexual intercourse is only for procreation. In this view the church is like a grouchy, old man, making sure that Catholics are not enjoying themselves in bed. But this misses the true richness of the Catholic teaching. The conjugal act contains "two inseparable aspects" these being "the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning." The sexual act is inherently both an act of ultimate giving and one of possible generation. These aspects are tied to the understanding of marriage in Christian morality. Marriage exists not simply to unite two people but to unite them in "raising up new lives." In this Christian anthropology there is no room for a separation of these two aspects and, thus the common misconception cannot be held to be true.
A final misconception that often arises is that the recourse to "natural rhythms" prescribed by Humanae Vitae is some kind of kooky and unreliable method. If one admits that contraception can only be used in certain grave instances, why resort to some odd and antiquated method such as that, when much more reliable artificial means exist (I will not get into a more detailed argument of the illicitness of artificial forms of contraception). But this old "rhythm" method which was admittedly unreliable has been replaced. In its place has come a method called Natural Family Planning which has proven to be 98 or 99 percent effective when used correctly.
Thirty years after Humanae Vitae such misconceptions cloud and prevent real discussion on the great encyclical. At the same time, the document itself has proven to be prophetic (as Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz has remarked) in some ways as well. In the sexual liberation which followed the pill, it can hardly be denied that women have been treated increasingly as sexual objects rather than subjects with inherent dignity. The world has become less feminized and rather more disgustingly male dominated. This is a gulf opened wide by such a disconnection from the moral order. Paul VI saw this beginning some 30 years ago and warned us to take heed. He realized that with all the artificial contraception at their hands, men might "come to the point" of treating women as "mere instrument[s] of selfish enjoyment." He also foresaw that many countries might impose contraception on their people. Recent and continuing reports of forced sterilizations are more evidence that he may have been frighteningly right.
Of course he also admitted the difficulty of understanding and grasping the church's teaching. But one would hope that as the 30th anniversary comes this weekend, a bit of intellectual rigor might come into the media and at the same time into us. Instead of off-hand disregarding this teaching reaffirmed 30 years ago, I would hope that some might take the time to read Humanae Vitae, looking past the many misconceptions and practicing that open mind which is to be characteristic of the college student and ultimately coming to see its richness and truth.
