40 years of 'Humanae vitae':

40 years of 'Humanae vitae': 

A sign of contradiction 

Editorial 

by Giovanni Maria Vian 

Translated from L'osservatory Romano

the 7/25/08 issue of 

Forty years ago today, on July 25, 1968, Paul VI signed Humanae vitae, the encyclical which rejected artificial contraception, and expressed itself strongly against sexual hedonism and the politics of family planning generally imposed on poorer nations by the more powerful. 

As soon as it was published on July 29, the encyclical raised unprecedented opposition within the Catholc Church itself, to the point that the Pope decided not to use again the solemn form of the encyclical - most probably in order not to expose the Pontifical authority to pointless abuse. 

"Rarely has a text in the recent history of the Magisterium," wrote Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 1995, "become such a sign of contradiction as this encyclical which Paul VI wrote after making a decision that he profoundly suffered through." 

To explain the controversial reaction and dissent provoked by the encyclical, many factors concurred, from the overall cultural climate of those years (it was the fateful summer of 1968) to the enormous economic interests affected by the encyclical. 

But Papa Montini never changed his stand on this crucial issue. A few weeks before his death, speaking to the College of Cardinals on June 23, 1978, he reiterated that "after reviewing the most serious conclusions from science," the decision he made in 1968 - consistent with Vatican-II which affirmed the principle of respect for natural law - was squarely for "a conscientious and ethically responsible parenthood". 

In his subsequent homily for the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, which was explicitly presented as a balance sheet of his Pontificate, Papa Montini cited Populorum progressio and Humanae vitae as expressions of that defense of human life that he defined as an integral element of service to the truth of the faith. 

Described mockingly by its critics as 'the encyclical against the pill', this papal document - in clear continuity with the Magisterium of Pius XI and above all of Pius XII, which were subsequently cited in this respect in Vatican-II's pastoral constitution Gaudium et spes - as well as consistent with the important conciliar statements on the concept of matrimony - was nonetheless submerged in controversy. 

Today, in the face of the disquieting developments in genetic engineering, Humanae vitae appears lucid and prophetic in its statement that "if one does not wish to expose to man's arbitration the mission of generating life, then unbreachable limits must be recognized to the possibility of man's dominion over his own body and its functions - limits which are not licit for any man, as a private individual or as someone in authority, to breach." 

The storm that raged against Paul VI's encyclical obscured its teaching on matrimony, which it described not as "an effect of chance nor the evolutionary product of unconscious natural forces" but instituted by God. 

A sacrament for those who have been baptized, matrimony is, "above all", Humanae vitae affirms, "a love that is fully human, that is to say, sensitve and spiritual", as well as "a very special form of personal friendship in which the spouses share everything." 

The preparation of the text was preceded by the work of a Pontifical Commission for the Study of Populations, Family and Natality, which, as is known, concluded with a consensus - far from unopposed, which is not as well-known - in favor of contraception as licit within the context of 'responsible parenthood'. 

Paul VI, as he states in the encyclical, did not feel himself bound by this conclusion, and was criticized and assailed for that decision. 

But one must not forget the other consensi that emerged. On September 6, 1968, Jean Guitton defined the encyclical as 'ferme mais non fermee'(firm but not closed), in that "while it speaks of the narrow path", it also shows that "it is the open way towards the future", and the Jesuit Cardinal theologian Jean Danielou underscored that the encycloical "makes us feel the sacred character of human love" and expresses "a protest against technocracy". 

As an authentic sign of contradiction, not many recall Humanae vitae gladly. Certainly not for its demanding and countercurrent teaching. But even because it is not useful to play the recurrent game of pitting one Pope against another - perhaps useful for historians to underscore obvious differences - but which must be rejected when used exploitatively which is the case most often in the media. 

Indeed, among Pope Paul VI's strongest supporters in this matter were Cardinal Karol Wojtyla - the Archbishop of Cracow who had an important role in the enlarged commission of inquiry, and who later innovated much about the issue in his Pontifical Magisterium on the body and sexuality; and theologian Joseph Ratzinger, whom Paul VI would make a cardinal nine years later. 

Which goes to show the vital continuity of the Christian proposition evene= on the question of birth control, which as early as June 23, 1964, Paul VI had defined as 'an extremely serious issue' because "it touches the sentiments and interests nearest to the experience of being man and woman".

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Familiaris Consortio #6:The Situation of the Family in the World Today

The Situation of the Family in the World Today

6. The situation in which the family finds itself presents positive and negative aspects: the first are a sign of the salvation of Christ operating in the world; the second, a sign of the refusal that man gives to the love of God.

On the one hand, in fact, there is a more lively awareness of personal freedom and greater attention to the quality of interpersonal relationships in marriage, to promoting the dignity of women, to responsible procreation, to the education of children. There is also an awareness of the need for the development of interfamily relationships, for reciprocal spiritual and material assistance, the rediscovery of the ecclesial mission proper to the family and its responsibility for the building of a more just society. On the other hand, however, signs are not lacking of a disturbing degradation of some fundamental values: a mistaken theoretical and practical concept of the independence of the spouses in relation to each other; serious misconceptions regarding the relationship of authority between parents and children; the concrete difficulties that the family itself experiences in the transmission of values; the growing number of divorces; the scourge of abortion; the ever more frequent recourse to sterilization; the appearance of a truly contraceptive mentality.

At the root of these negative phenomena there frequently lies a corruption of the idea and the experience of freedom, conceived not as a capacity for realizing the truth of God's plan for marriage and the family, but as an autonomous power of self-affirmation, often against others, for one's own selfish well-being.

Worthy of our attention also is the fact that, in the countries of the so-called Third World, families often lack both the means necessary for survival, such as food, work, housing and medicine, and the most elementary freedoms. In the richer countries, on the contrary, excessive prosperity and the consumer mentality, paradoxically joined to a certain anguish and uncertainty about the future, deprive married couples of the generosity and courage needed for raising up new human life: thus life is often perceived not as a blessing, but as a danger from which to defend oneself.

The historical situation in which the family lives therefore appears as an interplay of light and darkness.

This shows that history is not simply a fixed progression towards what is better, but rather an event of freedom, and even a struggle between freedoms that are in mutual conflict, that is, according to the well-known expression of St. Augustine, a conflict between two loves: the love of God to the point of disregarding self, and the love of self to the point of disregarding God.(16)

It follows that only an education for love rooted in faith can lead to the capacity of interpreting "the signs of the times," which are the historical expression of this twofold love.