Humanae Vitae at 50

But it comes as no surprise to the Church that she, no less than her divine Founder, is destined to be a "sign of contradiction."  BL P. Paul VI, HV 18

Composed by: Br. Simon Billachi

July 25, 2018, the feast of St. James the Apostle, will mark the 50th anniversary of Blessed Pope Paul VI’s encyclical letter Humanae Vitae, an appropriate day to release a teaching that the Pope knew would be a difficult one, just as “The Way of Saint James” is a difficult one for those who make that pilgrimage.  Since it was published, there have been and will be many more articles written praising Humanae Vitae and rightfully so.  The teaching is a clear and concise defense of authentic love against the incessant attacks of evil spirits that seek to nurture a “dictatorship of relativism” and a “culture of death.”  
 
Humanae Vitae considers many aspects of life and married love but if someone were to try to capture its core teaching from one sentence, it might be this one:
 
“But to experience the gift of married love while respecting the laws of conception is to acknowledge that one is not the master of the sources of life but rather the minister of the design established by the Creator.” HV 13
 
In Humanae Vitae, Bl. Pope Paul VI reaffirms consistent Church teaching and presents it to a rapidly changing world.  At the time of its publication, pharmaceutical companies were beginning to find great success in offering a new form of artificial contraception, “the pill.”  With the Anglican church’s having accepted the practice of artificial contraception at the Lambeth conference, most of the protestant world had decided to accept it as well.  Because of these scientific and social changes, the Pope, after prayerful discernment and guided by the Holy Spirit, decided to speak out on these changes.  The question was then asked and answered:  Science has changed, did moral truth change with it?  No, moral truth has not changed. 
 
Reality has only one paradigm, Truth.  And Truth is immutable, for at its core, Truth is not a something, it is a Someone, Jesus Christ.  Accepting this is the beginning of joy.
 
As the Pope predicted, however, with the promulgation of Humanae Vitae, there was indeed a clamorous uproar among those caught up in the spirit of the age, the so called “Sexual Revolution,” so much so that it has continued unabated for 50 years.  Why?  Because disordered desires cause people to reject the Truth.  In a world whose mantra is, “If it feels good, do it,” it is very difficult to learn that self-denial is the only true expression of self-control.  Humanae Vitae has been reaffirmed by every pope since Bl. Paul VI.  Nonetheless, many weeds have grown up with the wheat, leaving the people confused about what is right and “what does the Church really teach?” 
 
God has revealed Himself to be a Trinity of Persons in perfect relationship, which is the love within the Godhead.  A perfect unity of love:  holy, free and generous self-giving without limits; God naturally glorifies Himself in His creative power. 
  
Now, “bad” is the deprivation of being, or to put it another way and make it personal, “not being is bad.”  I think most of us can agree on that.  Therefore, being is “good.”  We say, “Life is good.”  But when God created man and woman, He saw all that He had created and said it was “very good.”  Evening came and morning followed, the sixth day.
 
On the seventh day God completed the work he had been doing; he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken.  Gen 2:2
 
What does it mean, God rested?  Did God get tired?  Because God is infinitely powerful it must mean something else.  What it means is that God set His work aside and when God sets something aside, or something is set apart for God’s sake, we say that it is consecrated or blessed, which means God makes it holy.
 
All of God’s creation is holy, just the way He created it. 
 
Having been made male and female, the procreative union of husband and wife is very good, it is sacred or holy.
 
“Married love particularly reveals its true nature and nobility when we realize that it takes its origin from God, who ‘is love’... God the Creator …in His loving design….”  HV 8
 
With this in mind, what does the Church teach about Contraception?
 
CCC 2366  Fecundity is a gift, an end of marriage, for conjugal love naturally tends to be fruitful.  A child does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfillment. So the Church, which is “on the side of life,” teaches that “it is necessary that each and every marriage act remain ordered per se to the procreation of human life.”  “This particular doctrine, expounded on numerous occasions by the Magisterium, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act.”
             
There is the teaching.

Now Why does the Church teach this?
 
Authentic love requires the humility to acknowledge God’s loving design.  To reflect God’s image, to be the persons we were created to be, our love must be marked by generous self- giving in its totality. 
St. Vincent De Paul said, “Charity is certainly greater than any rule.  Moreover, all rules must lead to charity…” 

That a child comes naturally of love is integral to our nature as human persons.  When reason guides our desires to choose that which is proper to our nature, we attain our proper end.  But just as with anything else, when we try to take the easy way, to implement short cuts, to do anything half-heartedly or fail to respect the full significance of what it is we are doing, the result will necessarily be wanting.  All desires or appetites are for a good, but only when we make rational choices do we attain the fulfillment of our “good,” happiness.

By using contraception, we fail to appreciate what marriage really is.  Instead of being enjoined freely, as a gift of joyful and generous self-giving, it becomes something conditional.  A boundary is put in place.  Instead of a life long journey with a unity of purpose, the rearing of children, it becomes one experience among many.  Instead of something consecrated to love, sex becomes something to be had.     

But why each and every time?  Ask yourself this, would you be happy if your spouse was faithful ninety percent of the time?  Of course the answer would be no!  Even a single instance of adultery impacts the marriage bond profoundly.

So what about artificial contraception?  It’s like saying, “I give my entire self to you …except my fertility.”  Actions form the interior disposition.  Unlike those who suffer infertility, contraception is a willful act.  The unitive and procreative aspects of sexual union are two sides of the same coin.  Many use contraceptives looking to avoid one “problem” and often don’t see the consequences of making that choice:  The “one flesh” union is broken.

We are social creatures; when intimacy is lost, naturally we will feel it and search for it again. However, if we exclude the possibility of children, the proper end of sex, it should be no surprise that we become frustrated and find ourselves seeking fulfillment in other places, mostly where it will never be found. 
We are body and soul.  St Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, tells us, “Man cannot live without joy; therefore when he is deprived of true spiritual joys it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures.”

The normalization of artificial contraception has led our culture into a type of double darkness.  1) Understanding of the true nature of marriage has been lost and 2) many people believe things about themselves that are not true, like sex is inevitable or that it’s no big deal—it’s just something we do.  These wrong ideas undermine the significance of sex and the value of life.

This confusion is caused in part by the way contraception is promoted.  Take the term “Birth Control” for example.  It has nothing to do with either birth or control.  It just gives the enticing illusion of a consequence-free environment.  But that’s not true either; we are all aware of how the family unit has been devastated since contraception was legalized.  We all live with the consequences of broken homes.

And it is all this brokenness that leads to abortion, the so called “safety net” for when artificial contraception fails.  The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has stated that since Roe v. Wade, the U.S. has averaged about a million reported abortions per year.  Over 60 million since 1973.  California and New York are not required to report. 

So, that is what society calls, “Birth Control.”

A more recent term for contraception that became popular about 20 years ago is “Preventive Health Care,” which sounds good, medicinal and proactive until one realizes that by calling it that, one is affirming a belief that “life is a disease.”  I wonder if that’s why it’s the CDC that tracks abortions?

What Humanae Vitae calls “the supreme gift of marriage,” namely children, society has begun to see as something to be afraid of, not as a good or source of joy.  Often the popular culture will treat children as either undesirable, a burden, or worse, a commodity. 
Bishop Paul Loverde made this observation,

“Families are unnecessarily smaller than they should be, owing to the criteria society imposes for happiness or success....  Thus there is a diminishment of the loving care that would be experienced beyond material goods and a false understanding of what children really need to grow in wholeness and how to live.

They need authentic love that is marked by the self giving that is joyous and not more clothing, gadgets or money.”

Contraception does grave damage to marriage and to families as it prevents our fruition as persons. That is why the Church teaches that it is gravely immoral. 

Marriage is a mystery.  It’s from the Greek word for mystery that we get the word sacrament.  As we all know, a sacrament has two parts:  Something seen or known and something unseen or mysterious.  What is seen or known in sex is sex, male and female.  What is unseen or mysterious?  Creativeness.  Something where there was once nothing. 

St Augustine said, “Our bodies are shaped to bear children, and our lives are a working out of the processes of creation. All our ambitions and intelligence are beside that great elemental point.”
It is because of this mystery that in justice man is required to give woman deference in all things, from the smallest courtesy to dying for her.  It is in woman that this mystery takes place.  She has the hidden creative power of God in her. 

This is also the reason the devil attacked Eve instead of Adam in the garden.  Satan continues the attack, undermining the woman and in turn undermining us all.

Contrary to the claims of “Secular Humanists,” there is no more zealous defender of life or the dignity of mankind than the Catholic Church.  Somebody once asked, “What is the Catholic Church to the pro-life movement?”  The reply they received was, “What is gravity to things falling down?” 
ST John Paul II said, “There is no greater affirmation of the dignity of man than that of the Incarnation, Jesus Christ, True God who became True man.”

Yes, we live in a culture of death and while the Church’s teaching on contraception is easily understood, it can be very difficult to live out.  But Don’t be afraid!  Just because the teaching of Humanae Vitae is a difficult one doesn’t mean it isn’t true.  We should rejoice in the fact that it is true and never shy from proclaiming it.  It is the Catholic Church’s teaching on contraception in particular that provides an “adequate anthropology” for understanding ourselves and affirms our nobility as persons.   It is the Church that has always celebrated marriage and celebrated all its goodness.  Why does the Church have ceremonies of baptism, marriage and funerals, that is, why does the church want to “Hatch ‘em, Match ‘em and dispatch ‘em”?  Because we are holy.

Humane Vitae has much more to say about married love.  Look for answers there, in the Catechism and in the writings of the saints.  The teaching is clear.  Read the Bible and see God’s generosity and Love.  Remember that married love takes its origin from God who is Love.  So if you find this teaching difficult, take it to God in prayer.  After all, sin did not conquer Jesus, Jesus conquered sin.  

Image Source: Richard Becker, Humanae Vitae and the Sensus Fidelium

"Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don't implement promises, but keep them." ― C.S. Lewis