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John Mahoney,
First published in The Making of Moral Theology, A Study
of the Roman Catholic Tradition
The Martin D’Arcy Memorial Lectures
1981-2
published by the Clarendon Press. Oxford (1989)
In the course of this study of the making of moral
theology we have had occasion to consider the importance of outstanding
thinkers such as Augustine and Aquinas; the currents and developments of
thought such as Stoicism and voluntarism; the sway of ideas such as
‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’; and the influence of Councils
such as Trent and
Vatican I. The scope and the purpose of our study have
not permitted detailed consideration of any one event, although in the
concluding chapter particular attention will be given to the Second Vatican
Council and to the fresh brief which it gave to the discipline of moral
theology. Of individual historical occurrences, however, which have contributed
to the present state of moral theology in almost all its aspects none can
rival, it can be argued, the letter which Pope Paul VI addressed to the Roman
Catholic Church in July 1968. The letter was Humanae Vitae and its
subject was contraception. This chapter is not, however, on the topic of
contraception nor even on Pope Paul’s encyclical letter. It is a study of
the impact of, or the events brought about in the Church and in moral theology
by, Humanae Vitae. After a brief narrative of events leading to the
issuing of the encyclical, it will offer an analysis of the impact of the
letter and some theological reflections on the whole phenomenon.
Events Preceding the Encyclical
It was the major chemical innovation in the 1950s in the
control of female fertility which so dramatically opened up to scrutiny the
Traditional Roman Catholic moral condemnation of contraception.(1)This had been
most vehemently summed up a generation previously by Pope Pius XI in his
encyclical letter, Casti Connubii, which was directed at both the
surgical operation of sterilization and any interference with the act of
intercourse itself.(2) Now it was possible, in effect, to regulate fertility
for shorter or longer periods without affecting the act of intercourse and
without the surgical intervention condemned as self-mutilation. This medical
development was to lead moral theologians, and Pope Pius XII, into a series of
casuistical considerations about morally permissible or morally forbidden
recourse to the anovulant pill for a variety of reasons on the part of married
and unmarried women.(3) Despite papal rejection in 1958 of the use of ‘the
pill’ for contraceptive purposes on the ground that it brought about a
direct sterilization, even if only temporary, the debate waxed into the 1960s,
particularly with contributions from the Louvain theologian, Professor L.
Janssens, and from the study of the American gynaeocologist, Dr John Rock,
entitled The Time Has Come. (4) With the publicizing of these and other
contributions debate became widespread among Roman Catholics on the validity of
the Church’s official teaching, and ranged from the difficulties
experienced by married couples and their families to the growing international
debate on the population explosion and the economic and ecological consequences
of world over-population. (5)
In 1963, shortly before his death, Pope John XXIII set
up a small and confidential international commission to consider the threat of
over-population, and in the following year and on subsequent later occasions
this papal commission was considerably enlarged as it became clear that the
underlying basic issue was the Church’s whole stance on marital
sexuality.(6) In 1964 Pope Paul VI referred to the findings of the commission
to date and promised that its conclusions would soon be delivered.
‘Meanwhile,’ he observed,
We say frankly that so far we do not have sufficient
reason to consider the norms given by Pope Pius XII on this matter as out of
date and therefore as not binding. They must be considered as valid, at least
until We feel obliged in conscience to change them, in a matter of such
seriousness it seems well that Catholics should wish to follow one single law,
that which the Church puts forward with authority. It therefore seems opportune
to recommend that, for the present, no one take it upon himself to make
pronouncements in terms which differ from the prevailing
norms.(7)
This papal statement, of course, only fuelled the
debate. The very fact that a papal commission did not consider the matter open
and shut confirmed suspicion and surmise on the subject, to the extent that the
traditional law might be considered doubtful and therefore subject to
‘probabilism’, with not only considerable arguments being marshalled
against it but also the authority of numerous theologians of international
repute.(8) In the circumstances it was not in the least surprising that the
view gained ground that individuals might in good conscience act contrary to
the traditional teaching. In 1963 the Dutch hierarchy had expressed a hope that
when the Second Vatican Council, first convened by Pope John XXIII, resumed its
work it would be able to consider questions about use of the contraceptive pill
‘in a broader context’.(9) And in 1964, in London, Archbishop Thomas
Roberts, the Jesuit retired Archbishop of Bombay, also looked forward to the
Council’s third session, ‘where, it is expected, this question will
be raised’, since for him it was only the Church’s authority and not
its arguments from natural law which carried weight at present.(10) ‘We
certainly may and must press for the acceptance by the General Council of the
“challenge” to justify by reason our own challenge to the world made
in the name of reason.’(11) A different expectation of the Council was
expressed by Cardinal Heenan and the English hierarchy, namely, that it would
‘reassure and comfort those bewildered by current attacks on the
traditional teaching about Christian marriage’.(12) The suggestions that
the Council might produce a change in teaching were irresponsible, for the
teaching traditional since Augustine and restated by Popes Pius XI and XII was
‘the plain teaching of Christ’ who warns against false leaders and
‘calls for sacrifice and self-denial’.(13)
When it did meet, however, for its third session the
Council was not to debate the subject, far less decide on it, except to
conclude in the most general terms that in harmonizing married love with
respect for human life married people could not depend simply on sincerity and
a weighing of motives, but must assess their conduct on ‘objective
criteria, drawn from the nature of the person and his acts’. Nor was it
permissible for children of the Church to take measures for controlling birth
which were condemned by the Church’s Magisterium.(14) The reason
for this conciliar silence on contraception, as the Council Fathers explained
in their general teaching on marriage and responsible parenthood, was that
‘some questions which require further and more detailed investigation have
been entrusted at the command of the Supreme Pontiff to a commission for the
study of population, family, and childbirth, so that when it completes its task
the Supreme Pontiff may deliver judgement. With the teaching of the
Magisterium in this state, this holy Synod does not intend immediately
to propose specific solutions’.(15)
Pope Paul had, in fact, informed the Council of his wish
that the problem of contraception be left to the papal commission which was
still in session, but this did not prevent several of the Bishops from
expressing strong views on the subject.(16) Cardinal Leger, Archbishop of
Montreal, publicly referred to a ‘fear with regard to conjugal love which
has paralysed our theology for such a long time’, and Cardinal Suenens of
Malines—Brussels offered some observations for the benefit of the papal
commission, although his suggestion that a commission be also appointed by the
Council to collaborate with the Pope’s commission was not taken up.(17)
Later, Pope Paul enlarged the fifty-strong membership of the commission to
include a body of sixteen cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, with Cardinal
Ottaviani as president and Cardinal Heenan of Westminster as
vice-president.(18) From remarks of the Pope later that year it appears that he
was at the time personally conscious of his responsibility to make a final
decision, but unclear as to what it should be.(19) In a public address the
following year (October 1966),in the course of a eulogy on woman, he repeated
what he had said more than two years previously, and commented that the
conciliar teaching on parenthood was ‘most useful’ but did not alter
the ‘substantial elements’ of Catholic doctrine on the regulation of
births.(20)
Eventually, in 1966, Pope Paul informed the world that
the ‘broad, varied, and extremely skilled international commission’
had now presented its findings, but, he added, ‘they cannot be considered
definitive’ without consideration of their serious doctrinal and pastoral
implications. On this the Pope was now engaged, and would be ‘for some
time yet’. In the meantime, he continued, the traditional norm
‘cannot be considered as not binding, as if the magisterium of the
Church were in a state of doubt at the present time, whereas it is rather in a
moment of study and reflection concerning matters which have been placed before
it as worthy of the most attentive consideration’.(21) What followed
almost inevitably, was widespread debate on when a state of doubt is not a
state of doubt, with all the probabilist implications of that term, but only a
state of study and reflection which could not therefore be pointed to as a
basis for a legitimate variety of practical solutions.(22)
The situation could only be exacerbated when the final
report of the papal commission was unofficially made public, and it also became
known that ‘the four theologians of the minority group acknowledged they
could not demonstrate the intrinsic evil of contraception on the basis of
natural law and so rested their case on Authority and the fear of possible
consequences of change both to Authority and to sexual morality’.(23) In
its final report, comprising eight short chapters, the papal commission
distinguished between a selfish and sinful ‘contraceptive mentality’,
and intervention in physiological processes as an application of objective
moral criteria; and it concluded ‘it is impossible to determine
exhaustively by a general judgement and ahead of time for each individual case
what these objective criteria will demand in the concrete situation of a
couple’. The cardinals and bishops of the papal commission prefaced the
technical report with a pastoral introduction in which the Church’s
magisterium was described as ‘in evolution’ on the subject.
This approach was unacceptable to the small number of dissentients in the
commission, whose views were expressed in a document immediately dubbed the
’Minority Report’ by the media, but which had in fact been a position
paper produced for the commission and arguing in favour of retaining the
Church’s traditional doctrine.(25) It claimed to uphold ‘a teaching
which until the present decade was constantly and authentically taught by the
Church’, and it observed that ‘for the Church to have erred so
gravely in its grave responsibility of leading souls would be tantamount to
seriously suggesting that the assistance of the Holy Spirit was lacking to
her’.(26) After exploring various lines of philosophical argument the
paper concludes that ‘the question is not merely or principally
philosophical. It depends on the nature of human life and human sexuality, as
understood theologically by the Church.’(27) The magisterium and
its authority are being viewed by some in modern times as providing broad
clarifications and not specific edicts issued once for all. But the Holy See
has never viewed matters in this manner.(28)
Eventually, five years after the original small
commission had been appointed by Pope John XXIII, four years after Pope Paul VI
had predicted that the commission’s results would soon be forthcoming, and
two years after it had finally submitted its report, Pope Paul VI issued, on 25
July 1968, his encyclical letter ‘on the right ordering of propagating
human offspring’.(29) Its message (in extremely summary form) was that the
conclusions of the papal commission did not exonerate the Pope from a personal
examination of the whole matter. Those conclusions had not been unanimous, and
in particular certain approaches and arguments had emerged which deviated from
the Church’s firm traditional teaching.(29) After careful reflection and
prayer Pope Paul himself concluded that the Church’s traditional rejection
of contraception and sterilization must be upheld as following from the basic
principles of the human and Christian doctrine of marriage and as part of
God’s moral law. He closed by recalling his reliance on ‘the firm
doctrine of the Church which the Successor of Peter faithfully guards and
interprets along with his brothers in the Catholic episcopate’, and he
repeated the need for man, if he is to attain to the true happiness for which
he longs, to observe the laws which God has built into his nature to be wisely
and lovingly respected.(31)
Six days after the publication of Humanae Vitae,
at his weekly summer audience at Castelgandolfo, Pope Paul reflected on his
encyclical and disclosed his own tortured feelings in the course of its
preparation and in the making of his final decision. First and foremost was the
continual awareness of the weight of his enormous responsibility, which had
caused him great spiritual suffering, to respond to the Church and to all
humanity against the background of tradition and the teaching of his immediate
predecessors, as well as of the Council. He was predisposed to accept so far as
he could the conclusions and the consultative nature of the papal commission,
but at the same time to act prudently. He was fully aware of the impassioned
discussions going on, of the media and of public opinion, and of the appeals of
countless less powerful troubled individuals. He had frequently felt submerged
in a sea of documents, and humanly overwhelmed at the apostolic duty of
pronouncing on them all. Often he had trembled before the dilemma of simply
yielding to current opinion or of delivering a judgement which would be ill
received by contemporary society or might be an arbitrary imposition on married
couples.
He had, Pope Paul continued, consulted many experts. He
had prayed for light from the Holy Spirit and placed his conscience at the full
disposal of the voice of truth, seeking to interpret the divine rule he saw
emerging from the interior demand of authentic human love, from the essential
structures of the institution of marriage, from the personal dignity of married
people, from their mission to serve life, and from the holiness of Christian
marriage. He had reflected on the factors established by the traditional
doctrine of the Church, and especially on the teaching of the Council. He had
weighed the consequences of one decision and the other. And he had had no
further doubt on his duty to speak as he had done.
Throughout all this concern, he had been continually
also guided by a second feeling, that of love and pastoral sensitivity for
married people. He had been happy to follow the Council’s personalist
approach to marriage, thus giving first place ‘in the subjective
evaluation of marriage’ to the love which creates and nourishes a
marriage. And this had led him to accept all the pastoral, medical, and
educational suggestions which would ease the observance of the ruling which he
had reaffirmed.
The Pope’s final feeling in preparing the
encyclical had been one of hope. In spite of the diversity of widespread
opinions and in spite of the difficulties which the way he had indicated would
entail for those who wished to commit themselves faithfully to it, as for those
who ought to teach it, his hope was that the encyclical would be well received
for its own force and its human truth, and that educated people especially
would be able to discover in it its connection with the Christian view of life
which authorized the Pope to make his own St Paul’s statement, ‘we
have the mind of Christ’ (1 Cor. 2: 16). He also hoped that Christian
couples would understand that, however severe and hard his words could appear,
they were aimed at interpreting the genuineness of their love which was called
to be transfigured in the love of Christ for his mystical spouse, the Church.
His final wish to his audience was that, as he had attempted to deal with the
subject truthfully and lovingly, so they would consider Humanae Vitae
with respect and in the light of the Christian life.(32)
A more technical official commentary on the encyclical
had been presented by Monsignor Lambruschini to the world’s press on the
occasion of its publication. He was professor of moral theology at Rome’s
Lateran University, and as well as being chosen as official spokesman of the
Vatican on this occasion he had been a member of the commission and was
obviously familiar with the whole debate and its history.(33) He described how
the commission had worked as four interconnected groups of experts in various
fields: doctors and research scientists; demographers: married couples, mostly
doctors; and theologians. This last group had a certain prominence and guiding
role, while the others provided expertise from their various fields of
competence. ‘In fact the conclusions of the commission were proposed by
the theologians who, nevertheless, had not reached a full concordance of
judgements concerning the norms to be proposed. While the theologians of the
minority found a common platform in the line of the preceding magisterium,
those of the majority were not unanimous in their attempt at explaining up
to what point of the renewal of that magisterium its continuity would be
compromised. And it was not just a matter of shades of meaning but of rather
profound dissent’.(34)
The most important point which Lambruschini had to make
in his lengthy background statement concerned the status of Pope Paul’s
encyclical as a teaching document of the papal magisterium. After
observing that study of the encyclical did not suggest that it was an
infallible statement, but that nevertheless its authenticity was reinforced by
its continuing the teaching of the Church’s magisterium, he went
into the question of how it was to be received.
The pronouncement has come. It is not infallible, but
it does not leave the questions concerning birth regulation in a condition of
vague problematics. Assent of theological faith is due only to definitions
properly so-called, but there is owed also loyal and full assent, interior and
not only exterior, to an authentic pronouncement of the magisterium, in
proportion to the level of the authority from which it emanates — which in
this case is the supreme authority of the Supreme Pontiff — and to its
object, which is most weighty, since it is a matter of the tormented question
of the regulation of births. In particular, it can and must be said that the
authentic pronouncement of the Humanae Vitae encyclical prevents the
forming of a probable opinion, that is to say an opinion acting on the moral
plane in contrast with the pronouncement itself, whatever the number and the
hierarchical, scientific, and theological authority of those who considered in
the past few years that they could form it for themselves. The pretext of a
presumed doubt in the Church because of the Pope’s long silence has no
substance and is in conflict with the renewed pontifical and conciliar appeals
to observe previous and always valid directives of the
magisterium
Reactions to the Encyclical
One thing at least, then, seemed clear, and that was
that Pope Paul’s teaching on contraception did not claim to be given
infallibly, although a press conference may be considered a strange, almost
casual, way of informing the Church on such a matter. But events were to
demonstrate that little else appeared clear or settled. The hopes which Pope
Paul had expressed about the reception of his encyclical were to be sadly
disappointed in the completely unprecedented and violent reactions which it
aroused, both outside and within the Roman Catholic Church. One of the
signatories to the final commission report described the immediate aftermath of
the encyclicals appearance as ‘the month of theological
anger’.(36)
One French periodical commented that ‘the first
reactions, ranging from enthusiasm through indifference and stupefaction to
outright rejection, highlight the place of the contraception controversy in the
postconciliar Church and also how much interest the encyclical has aroused
outside the Church’.(37) And it was in a context of conflicting reactions
within the Church, from individuals, lay, clerical, and scientific, including
members of the papal commission, and from professional groups as well as from
innumerable periodicals, that the next major development took place—the
gradual responses of all the regional and national hierarchies throughout the
world to the papal teaching on contraception. In a preliminary letter to all
the bishops of the Church, Pope Paul had requested them to present the
encyclical in its true ‘positive and beneficent aspect’,(38) and in
the encyclical itself he also requested that bishops discharge their most
important responsibility and give a lead to their clergy and people in
safeguarding the sanctity of marriage.(39) In the more than thirty episcopal
statements which resulted from these two requests we thus have a body of
widely-based literature which views Humanae Vitae from the standpoint of
local churches and is also in a position to comment on the widespread critical
reactions to the encyclical.
It is of interest to note that although no local hierarchy took public
issue with the substantial teaching of the encyclical, some more than others
are to be seen struggling with it in an attempt to explain it and to bring its
general teaching closer to the real lives, difficulties, and anxieties of their
own people. Thus the feature most common to many of these episcopal statements
is a sympathetic attempt to help married couples to come to terms with
Humanae Vitae in the intimacy of their family lives and personal
circumstances, and particularly in the light of preoccupations and
characteristics peculiar to various regions, countries, and localities.
The diversity of the Church is witnessed to, for
instance, in the crises of population growth and widespread poverty in
underdeveloped countries noted by the hierarchies of Ceylon and Puerto
Rico,(41) or in the fact of being a small minority in an almost completely
secular sophisticated society as evidenced in the Scandinavian statement.(42)
The confident historical tradition of German and Belgian theological reflection
may be sensed in the pronouncements of these hierarchies,(43) and may be
contrasted with the stress on tradition and conservation contained in others.
(44) The blend of speculation and pragmatism in the context of France(45) may
be interestingly compared with the recognition of individual conscience and of
the emergence of an articulate laity in England, the land of John Henry
Newman,(46) or with the awareness of a powerful theological establishment in
the Universities and Colleges of the United States.(47) And the frank and
participatory character of the Dutch Pastoral Council, including its nine
bishops, is evident in its finding the arguments unconvincing,(48) in marked
contrast to several episcopal statements elsewhere in the Church which stress
the traditional religious values of self-mistrust and the need for
authoritative guidance.(49)
(1) Cf. A. Valsecchi, Controversy: The Birth-control Debate
1958-1968 (London, 1968), pp.1-8.
(2) The asseveration of the traditional teaching, from
which the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion had recently and
partially retreated, occupies only a few paragraphs of the papal disquisition
on the many contemporary attacks on the institution of ‘Chaste
Marriage’ (cf. supra, p. 59): ‘De prole sit sermo, quam multi
molestum connubii onus vocare audent, quamque a coniugibus, non per honestam
continentiam (etiam in matrimonio, utroque consentiente coniuge, permissam),
sed vitiando naturae actum, studiose arcendam praecipiunt.... At nulla profecto
ratio, ne gravissima quidem, efficere potest, ut, quod intrinsece est contra
naturam, id cum natura congruens et honestum fiat. Cum autem actus coniiugii
suapte natura proli generandae sit destinatus, qui, in eo exercendo, naturali
hac eum vi atque virtute de industria destituunt, contra naturam agunt et turpe
quid atque intrinsece inhonestum operantur .... Cum igitur quidam, a christiana
doctrina iam inde ab initio tradita neque umquam intermissa manifesto
recedentes, aliam nuper de hoc agendi modo doctrinam sollemniter praedicandam
censuerint, Ecclesia Catholica, cui ipse Deus morum integritatem honestatemque
docendam et defendendam commisit, in media hac morum ruina posita, ut nuptialis
foederis castimoniam a turpi hac labe immunem servet, in signum legationis suae
divinae, altam per Nostrum extollit vocem atque denuo promulgat: quemlibet
matrimonii usum, in quo exercendo, actus, de industria hominum, naturali sua
vitae procreandae vi destituatur, Dei et naturae legem infringere, et eos qui
tale quid commiserint gravis noxae labe commaculari’, AAS 22
(1930), pp. 559—60. The claim to a doctrine ‘passed on from the
beginning’ rests on Augustine’s exegesis of Gen. 38: 8—10
(ibid.). This and the denunciatory language, as well as the Tridentine teaching
on the possibility of obeying the commandments (supra, p. 54}, are not
to be found in Humanae Vitae, but the basic arguments and terminology
are repeated. The teaching of Pius XI on sterilisation occurs in the context of
eugenics and of the move in some quarters to prevent certain individuals from
marrying, or to sterilize them whether they be willing or not. Genetic
counselling might often be called for, the Pope judged, but no more. As for
sterilization, ‘publici vero magistratus in subditorum membra directam
potestatem habent nullam; ipsam igitur corporis integritatem, ubi nulla
intercesserit culpa nullaque adsit cruentae poenae causa, directo laedere et
attingere nec eugenicis nec ullis aliis de causis possunt unquam .... Ceterum,
quod ipsi privati homines in sui corporis membra dominatum alium non habeant
quam qui ad eorum naturales fines pertineat, nec possint ea destruere aut
mutilare aut alia via ad naturales functiones se ineptos reddere, nisi quando
bono totius corporis aliter provideri nequeat, id christiana doctrina statuit
atque ex ipso humanae rationis lumine omnino constat’, ibid., pp. 564-5.
Thus was enunciated the ‘principle of totality’, which Pope Pius XII
was later to deploy against organ transplantation from living donors but whose
extension he was to reject when applied to the ‘totality’ of the
person, or even of a marriage, in justification of contraceptive sterilization,
whether of a surgical nature or of a temporary and medically induced nature.
Pius XI’s teaching on sterilization as a contraceptive measure was spelled
out some years later by the Holy Office, DS 3760-5
(3) Cf. Valsecchi, pp.1-8.
(4) Pope Pius XII, AAS 50 (1958), p. 734. For reactions to his
interventions, cf. Valsecchi, pp. 9-26. Janssens had first written in 1958 and
continued to contribute to the debate, Valsecchi, pp. 4, 24, 38-41. Rock’s
The Time Has Come (London, 1963) was important as a contribution from a
layman and an expert in human fertility studies. An impressive study by the
distinguished American Jesuit moralists, John C. Ford and Gerald Kelly,
attempted to combine fidelity to the papal magìsterìum
with delicate moral analysis presented ‘in a way which will be useful
to priests, theologians, theological students, and others who have a
professional interest in the problems chosen for discussion’,
Contemporary Moral Theology, Vol. ii; Marriage Questions (Cork, 1963),
p. [v].
(5) Contribution to the debate on the part of married couples was
typified by M. Novak (ed.), The Experience of Marriage, (London, 1965).
On population and economic considerations, cf., e.g., Rock, pp. 3-27. On the
debate in Britain prior to Humanae Vitae, much useful documentation is
to be found in Leo Pyle (ed.), The Pill and Birth Regulation (London,
1964).
(6) Cf. Peter Harris et al., On Human Life (London, 1968), pp.
l0-11. See Informations catholiques internationales, Suppl. au No. 3
17-18 (August 1968), pp. iii-vi, for a brief history of the Vatican II debate
and the papal commission.
(7) ‘La questione è allo studio, quanto più largo e
profundo possibile, cioè quanto più grave ed onesto
dev’essere in materia di tanto rilievo. È allo studio, diciamo, che
speriamo presto concludere con la collaborazione di molti ed insigni studiosi.
Ne daremo percanto presto le conclusioni nella forma che sarà ritenuta
più adeguata all’oggetto trattato e allo scopo da conseguire. Ma
diciamo intanto francamente che non abbiamo finora motivo sufficiente per
retinere superate e perciò non obbliganti le norme date da Papa Pio XII
a tale riguardo; esse devono perciò retinersi valide, almeno
finché non Ci sentiamo in coscienza obbligati a modificarle. In tema di
tanta gravità sembra bene che i Cattolici vogliano seguire un‘unica
legge, quale la Chiesa autorevolmente propone; e sembra pertanto opportuno
raccomandare che nessuno per ora si arroghi di pronunciarsi in termini difformi
dalla norma vigente’, AAS 56 (1964), pp. 588-9. The diplomatic tone
of the last sentence, ‘recommending’ that at present no one make a
statement diverging from the traditional teaching, may be explained by the
context of a papal address to Cardinals and by the awareness that a number of
bishops and cardinals, including the Dutch hierarchy, felt the need for some
flexibility in the matter. Cf. Pyle, pp. 32-4. It may also be noted that
Archbishop Roberts’s article expressing his disquiet about the
Church’s teaching had appeared only a few weeks previously. Cf. the
further documentation contained in Leo Pyle (ed.), Pope and Pill
(London, 1968), pp. 8-12.
(8) Cf. Pyle, The Pill pp. 221-4, Pope and Pill, pp. 24-6.
On the repercussions caused in England by statements of the highly popular
Redemptorist moralist, Bernard Häring, cf. Pyle, The PilI, pp.
150-64. (On probabilism, cf. supra, pp. 227-9)
(9) Ibid., p. 33.
(10) Ibid., pp. 86-7.
(11) Ibid., p. 90.
(12) Ibid., p. 96.
(13) Ibid.
(14) ‘Moralis igitur indoles rationis agendi, ubi de componendo
amore coniugali cum responsabili vitae transmissione agitur, non a sola sincera
intentione et aestimatione motivorum pendet, sed obiectivis criteriis, ex
personae eiusdemque actuum natura desumptis, determinari debet quae integrum
sensum mutuae donationis ac humanae procreationis in contextu veri amoris
observant; quod fieri nequit nisi virtus castitatis coniugalis sincere animo
colatur. Filiis Ecclesiae, his principiis innixi, in procreatione regulanda,
vias inire non licet, quae a Magisterio, in lege divina explicanda,
improbantur’, Gaudium et spes, no. 51; AAS 68 (1966),
p.1072.
(15) ‘Quaedam quaestiones quae aliis ac diligentioribus
investigationibus indigent, iussu Summi Pontificis, Commissioni pro studio
populationis, familiae et natalitatis traditae sunt, ut postquam illa munus
suum expleverit, Summus Pontifex iudicium ferat. Sic stante doctrina
Magisterii, S. Synodus solutiones concretas immediate proponere non
intendit’, ibid., note 14; AAS, p. 1073. On various unsuccessful
attempts to influence the Council to endorse the teaching of Casti connubii
and to perpetuate the reference to procreation as the ‘primary
end’ of marriage, cf. Pyle, Pope and Pill, pp. 41-8, 68-70; Harris,
op. cit., pp. 16-18. This occasioned what Informations catholiques,
ibid., pp. iii-iv, termed ‘une des batailles les plus rudes du
concile’. In the event, the Conciliar footnote 14 (supra) simply
referred the reader to Casti connubii, the address of Pius XII to Midwives
(October 1951), and the allocution of Pope Paul to the College of Cardinals
(supra, n. 7).
(16) Cf. Harris, pp. 11-13; Pyle, Pope, pp. 27-34.
(17) Pyle, ibid., p.29; Harris, p.13.
(18) Harris, p.14; Inf. cath., ibid., p. iv.
(19)Addressing a conference of Italian women on 12. February 1966, Pope
Paul described how the recent Council had given a ‘synthetic view’ of
the problems concerning the family, and continued, ‘Non è stata
possibile in sede conciliare una trattazione esauriente della materia,
specialmente circa il grave e complesso problema sulle norme relative alia
natalità. Non è ancora possibile sciolgere la riserva enunciata
nel Nostro discorso del giugno 1964; ma in attesa di poter dare più
precisi insegnamenti, crediamo opportuno da parte Nostra dire in proposito una
parola di esortazione pastorale .... Non tutti i problemi, dicevamo, sui quali
gli sposi e i genitori cristiani attendono e desiderano una parola, hanno
potuto essere affrontati: alcuni di essi, per la loro complessità e
delicatezza, non potevano venire discussi facilmente in una assemblea numerosa;
altri richiedevano e richiedono studi approfonditi, per i quali è stata
costituita, com’è noto, una speciale Commissione pontificia, la
quale e scata incaricata di approfondire lo studio di questi problemi nei loro
varî aspetti: scientifici, storici, sociologici e dottrinali, avvalendosi
anche di larghissime consultazioni di Vescovi e di esperti. Noi invitiamo ad
attendere i risultati di questi studi, accompagnandoli con la preghiera: il
Magistero della Chiesa non può proporre norme morali, se non quando
è certo di interpretare il volere di Dio; e per raggiungere questa
certezza la Chiesa non è dispensata dalle ricerche, né
dall’esame delle molte questioni da ogni parte del mondo proposte alla sua
considerazione: operazioni queste talvolta lunghe e non facili’, AAS
58 (1966), pp. 218-19. Pyle, Pope and Pill, p.59, records an
interview of Pope Paul which appeared in Corriere della Sera (4 October,
1965), and in which he is reported as saying, ‘The world is wondering what
we think and we must give an answer. But what? The Church has never in her
history confronted such a problem .... There is a good deal of study going on;
but we have to make the decision. This is our responsibility alone. Deciding is
not as easy as studying. But we must say something. What? . . . God must truly
enlighten us.
(20) ‘Ricorderemo qui soltanto ciò che abbiamo esposto nel
Nostro discorso del 23 giugno 1964; e cioè: il pensiero e la norma della
Chiesa non sono cambiati; sono quelli vigenti nell’insegnamento
tradizionale della Chiesa. Il Concilio Ecumenico, testé celebrato, ha
apportato alcuni elementi di guidizio, utilissimi ad integrare la dottrina
cattolica su questo importantissimo tema, ma non tali da cambiarne i termini
sostanziali .... Con ciò la nuova parola, che si attende dalla Chiesa,
sul problema della regolazione delle nascite, non è ancora pronunciata,
per il fatto che Noi stessi, avendola promessa e a Noi riservata, abbiamo
voluto prendere in attento esame le istanze dottrinali e pastorali, che su tale
problema sono sorte in questi ultimi anni . . . .’ AAS 58 (1966),
pp. 1168—9
(21) ‘Ciò è parso essere Nostro dovere; e abbiamo
cercato di compierlo nel modo migliore, incaricando un’ampia, varia,
versatissima Cornmissione internazionale; la quale, nelle sue diverse sezioni e
con lunghe discussioni, ha compiuto un grande lavoro, ed ha a Noi rimesso le
sue conclusioni. Le quali, tuttavia, a Noi sembra, non possono essere
considerate definitive, per il fatto ch’esse presentano gravi implicazioni
con altre non poche e non lievi questioni, sia d’ordine dottrinale, che
pastorale e sociale, le quali non possono essere isolate e acantonate, ma
esignono una logica considerazione nel contesto di quella posta allo studio.
Questo fatto... impone alla Nostra responsabilità un supplemento di
studio... E questo il motivo che ha ritardato il Nostro responso, e che lo
dovrà differire ancora per qualche tempo. Intanto, come già
dicemmo nel citato discorso, la norma finora insegnata dalla Chiesa , integrata
dalle sagge istruzioni del Concilio, reclama fedele e generosa osservanza;
né può essere considerata non vincolante, quasi che il magistera
della Chiesa fosse ora in stato di dubbio, mentre è in un momento di
studio e di riflessione su quanto è stato prospettato come meritevole di
attentissima considerazione’, ibid., pp.1169-70
(22) Cf. Pyle, Pope, pp. 71-73.
(23) Dr.John Marshall, a member of the Papal Commission
from its first appointment, in a letter to The Times, 3 August 1968
(Pyle, Pope, pp. 83-5).
(24) Pyle, pp. 263, 266
(25) Cf. Harris, pp. 20, n. 19; 165; Pyle, pp. 193-4, recording the
statement of Cardinal Heenan with reference to ‘the minority report which,
although I presided at many meetings of the Pontifical Commission, I had not
seen before it appeared in The Tablet, It was not signed by any of the
cardinals or bishops. I assume that the priests who signed sent their views
privately to the Pope. This does not constitute what in England we would call
an official minority report’ In giving the text of the document, Pyle, p.
271, reports that the four theologians who signed it were Frs Ford, Visser,
Zalba, and de Lestapis. For the contrary ‘position paper’ arguing for
‘evolution’ in Church teaching, and submitted by Frs Fuchs and
Sigmond and Canon Delhaye to be ‘approved by a majority of the theologians
on the commission,’ cf. Pyle, pp. 296-306.
(26) Pyle, pp. 276, 296.
(27) Ibid., p. 280.
(28) Ibid., pp. 282-4.
(29) Litterae Encyclicae . . . de propagatione
humanae prolis recte ordinanda, AAS 60 (1968), pp. 481-503. In accordance
with custom the letter is referred to by its opening words, ‘Humanae vitae
tradendae munus gravissimum . . .’.
(30) ‘Attamen conclusiones, ad quas Coetus
pervenerat, a Nobis tales existimari non poterant, quae vim iudicii certi ac
definiti prae se ferrent quaeque Nos officio liberarent, tam gravis momenti
quaestionem per Nosmetipsos considerationeä expendendi; his vel etiam de
causis, quod in Coetu plena sententiarum consensio de normis moralibus
proponendis afuerat, quodque praesertim quaedam quaestionis dissolvendae viae
rationesque exstiterant, a doctrina morali de matrimonio, a Magisterio
Ecclesiae firma constantia proposita, discendentes’, ibid., no. 6; pp.
484-5.
(31) ‘Verumtamen Ecclesia, dum homines commonet de observandis
praeceptis legis naturalis, quam constanti sua doctrina interpretatur, id docet
necessarium esse, ut quilibet matrimonii usus ad vitam humanam
procreandam per se destinatus permaneat’, ibid., no. n; p. 488.
‘Quare primariis hisce principiis humanae et christianae doctrinae de
matrirnonio nixi, iterum debemus dicere, . . .’, no. 14; p. 490.
‘Ecclesia autem . . . non idcirco iniunctum sibi praetermittit officium,
totam legem moralem, cum naturalem tum evangelicam, humiliter ac firmiter
praedicandi. Cum Ecclesia utramque hanc legem non condiderit, eiusdem non
arbitra, sed tantummodo custos atque interpres esse potest, eique numquam fas
erit licitum declarare, quod revera illicitum est, cum id suapte natura germane
hominis bono semper repugnet’, ibid., no. 18; p. 494. ‘Vos . . . nunc
advocamus, firmissima freti Ecclesiae doctrina, quam Petri Successor, una cum
catholici episcopatus Fratribus, fideliter custodit atque interpretatur . . .
siquidem homo ad veram felicitatem, quam totis sui animi viribus affectat,
pervenire nequit, nisi leges observat, a summo Deo in ipsius natura insculptas,
quae sunt prudenter amanterque colendae’, ibid., no. 31; pp. 501-3.
(32) Unusually, the text of this allocution was
subsequently printed in AAS 60 (1968), pp. 527—30. One interesting
feature is that reference is made (p. 528, n. 1) to the study Amour conjugal
et renouveau conciliare of the French Jesuit theologian, G. Martelet, whom
many considered a prominent collaborator in the composing of Humanae Vitae.
As a candid baring of the soul, the allocution is a remarkable event.
‘A voi diremo semplicitamente qualche parole non tanto sul documento in
questione, quanto su alcuni Nostri sentimenti, che hanno riempito il Nostro
animo nel periodo non breve della sua preparazione. Il primo sentimento e stato
quello d’una Nostra gravissima responsabilità . Non mai abiamo
sentito come in questo congiuntura il peso del Nostro ufficio’ (p. 528). .
. ‘Quante volte abbiamo avuto 1’impressione di essere quasi
soverchiati da questo cumulo di documentazione’ (p. 529). ... ‘E
finalmente un sentimento di speranza ha accompagnato la laboriosa redazione di
questo documento; la speranza ch’esso, quasi per virtù propria, per
la sua umana verità sarà bene accolto, nonostante la
diversità di opinioni oggi largamente diffusa . . .’ (p. 530)
(33) On Lambruschini’s membership of the commission from its
inception, cf. Harris, p. 260. Harris also reports (p. 166) that Lambruschini
declined in the course of the final plenary meeting of the commission to
participate in drafting a theological report, ‘although earlier he had
seemed to favour the majority view’. The text of his press statement is
reproduced in part in Pyle, pp. 101-5.
(34) Pyle, p. 102.
(35) Ibid., p. 104.
(36) After the August holidays, ‘Septembre, par contre, fut le mois
de la "colère théologique" ‘, Philippe Delhaye (ed.),
Pour relire Humanae Vitae (Gembloux, ), P. 9. On Delhaye’s position
in the papal commission, cf. supra, n. 25.
(37) Information cath. intern., p. xiii. In its editorial the
French periodical commented that the encyclical raised the question, not of
faith in Christ and its formulation, but of ‘some great moral
truths’. This was the value of the ‘debate’ which Humanae
Vitae was inaugurating, ibid., p. i.
(38) E. Hamel, ‘Conferentiae episcopales et Encyclica "Humanae
Vitae" ’, Periodica 58 (1969), p. 327; John Horgan, Humanae
Vitae and the Bishops (Ireland, 1972.), p. 112. Horgan’s work and that
of Delhaye (supra, n. 36) are valuable for providing collections of the
various episcopal statements, as well as for their comments and background
explanations. Hamel’s is a useful factual and theological analysis of the
statements.
(39) Humanae Vitae, no. 30; AAS, ibid., p. 502. Hamel
points out that the Belgian hierarchy also referred to the encyclical’s
statement (no. 28; p. 501) on ‘the light of the Holy Spirit enjoyed
especially by the Church’s pastors in explaining the truth’, art.
cit., p. 328.
(40) Pyle, Pope and Pill, pp. 105 ff., provides much general and
editorial reaction, mainly in Britain. Although it reprints a few statements of
individual bishops the work evidently went to press before the ‘Statement
of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales’ was issued in
September 1968. (For this, cf. Horgan, op. cit., pp. 112-18). It may also be
noted that the translation of the encyclical in Pyle, pp. 239-56 (and in
Valsecchi) reproduces the Vatican English version, in which, as the author
pointed out in the Tablet at the time, the final two sentences of
paragraph 29 of the encyclical had been omitted. Cf. Pyle, p. 255, Valsecchi,
p. 228, with AAS, ibid., p. 502 (infra, n. 59).
(41) Cf. Horgan, pp. 88-9, 231-3.
(42) Cf. the remarks of Horgan, pp. 26-8, on the Scandinavian
Church.
(43) The West German Bishops issued two statements
(Morgan, pp. 303-4, 305-12) in a Church where public reaction to the encyclical
‘was extraordinarily vocal’ (ibid., p. 14), and were also in the
enviable position of being able to refer to a Letter which they had issued the
previous year on ‘the necessity and the degree of obligation of decisions
of the Church on moral questions’ (ibid., p. 304). For the Belgian text,
cf. Delhaye, pp. 123-7.
(44) E.g., Italy (Horgan, pp. 163-8), Spain (246-52.),
India (130-1), Scotland (242-5), Ireland (138-9, 140—62,).
(45) French text, adopted ’à la
quasi-unanimité, in Delhaye, pp. 149-57, with commentary of Cardinal
Renard, pp. 158-61.
(46) ‘It must be stressed that the primacy of
conscience is not in dispute . . . ’, Horgan, pp. 112-8 at p.116.
(47) Horgan, pp. 262-3, 264-302., with extensive quotation from Cardinal
Newman (p. 273), and reference to other issues which were disquieting American
Catholics, including abortion, the arms race, and the Vietnam War. On this
last, the hierarchy wrote positively on the role of dissenting conscience and
observed that ‘the war in Vietnam typifies the issues which present and
future generations will be less willing to leave entirely to the normal
political and bureacratic processes of national decision-making’ (p.
299).
(48) Horgan, pp. 191, 192.. ‘The assembly considers
that the encyclical’s total rejection of contraceptive methods is not
convincing on the basis of the arguments put forward’ (192).
(49) E.g., Columbia (Horgan, pp. 92-4), Portugal (pp.
220-9), Yugoslavia {pp. 313-32)
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