Were you even born?

I would like to thank the Michaels, Perry and Scaperlanda, for providing the catalyst for this contribution. I am further grateful to Michael S. for his thoughtful post which contained a portion of Archbishop Chaput’s letter On Human Life. Here I would like to indicate that I was indeed born when the encyclical was issued by Pope Paul VI; moreover, I know Michael P. was because I saw him on campus during this time. Now the readership of MOJ know that we are both over the age of forty by more than just a few years.

I would like to begin my commentary of today with some remarks directed toward Elena Curti’s The Tablet article cited by Michael P. First of all, it is unclear on what evidence Ms. Curti relies in her claim that Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae “is barely heeded by many Catholics in the West.” I cannot dispute the possibility that some folks who consider themselves Catholic do not honor the encyclical’s instruction, but I wonder if that is the only teaching of the Church that they do not follow? It seems that most of us are sinners, and there are times in our lives when we do not follow a host of the Church’s teachings on a wide variety of subjects. However, I think it possible that people labor to obey Church teachings and succeed on some occasions but fail on others. A remarkable thing about human free will is that we make the decision to do what we should do and avoid what we should not do. We choose whether we are in a state of grace or a state of sin. Neither God nor the Church forces us to do something against our will. But the question remains: is the exercise of our will in accord with what God and his holy Church teach?

This brings me to a second point made in the Curti essay. She asserts that some couples may be disobeying the Church’s teachings against artificial contraception, and she may well be correct. They exercise their freedom in accord with the subjective standard of their “inner voice” and little beyond it. That The Tablet is a British publication does not diminish the fact that there are some people across the globe who likely subscribe to the kind of liberty described by Ms. Curti and defined by Justice Kennedy in Planned Parenthood v. Casey: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning of the universe, and the mystery of human life.” But this subjectively formulated sense of liberty insulates the human person from any objective determinant of what is right and what is wrong. However, the exercise of this form of freedom does not diminish the Church’s authority; it ignores it because of an exaggerated mode of liberty that can ultimately be self-destructive. It is self-destructive because sooner or later individually determined conceptions of the meaning of human existence and human life will confront and conflict with one another. While this type of liberty may be attractive to some people, it will inevitably lead to chaos. The wisdom of what the Church teaches, on the other hand, demonstrates how a person in communion with its teachings can avoid this collision and chaos.

My third point about Ms. Curti’s essay concerns her claim that because of its particular teaching about human sexuality and artificial contraception, the Church is “out of touch and lacking in compassion.” Is it? Is it really? While it may present challenges, as Michael S. points out, the Church’s teachings can be followed and be rewarding. I would like to add that the route chartered by Ms. Curti’s assertion leads to permissiveness, infidelity, and a false sense of invincibility against the harms of sexual activity outside of the context of a marriage between a man and a woman. Ms. Curti appears to be familiar with the argument that the Church’s teachings prevent an HIV/Aids infected spouse from having sex with the other spouse. Keeping in mind her thought, shouldn’t we then ask the question: how did the infected spouse become infected in the first place? Perhaps it was a tainted blood transfusion, but my suspicion is that it is usually something else—infidelity.

My fourth and final point is on the Curti essay’s claim that “The shock that greeted the encyclical was the greater because many Catholics had expected a reversal of the Church’s teaching.” The fact that Pope Pius XII may have approved the so-called rhythm method (or natural family planning) ought not to lead to the inevitable conclusion that approval of artificial contraception would follow. But Ms. Curti introduces further evidence to substantiate her claim: the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World—Gaudium et Spes. It indeed contains several paragraphs about married life and conjugal love, but Ms. Curti’s statement that this important text from the Second Vatican Council “which identified conjugal love and responsible parenthood as the pillars of married life” does not reinforce her claim that “[h]opes of reform had further been raised” by Gaudium et Spes. In fact, the text of this document from the Second Vatican Council supports a conclusion very different from the one suggested by Ms. Curti. In N. 51, the Council states,

the acts themselves which are proper to conjugal love and which are exercised in accord with genuine human dignity must be honored with great reverence. Hence when there is question of harmonizing conjugal love with the responsible transmission of life, the moral aspects of any procedure does not depend solely on sincere intentions or on an evaluation of motives, but must be determined by objective standards. These, based on the nature of the human person and his acts, preserve the full sense of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love. Such a goal cannot be achieved unless the virtue of conjugal chastity is sincerely practiced. Relying on these principles, sons of the Church may not undertake methods of birth control which are found blameworthy by the teaching authority of the Church in its unfolding of the divine law. All should be persuaded that human life and the task of transmitting it are not realities bound up with this world alone. Hence they cannot be measured or perceived only in terms of it, but always have a bearing on the eternal destiny of men.

Ms. Curti’s article reminds us about the work of the Pontifical Commission appointed by Pope Paul VI to study population issues. Amongst its members were two Jesuits who were also renowned professors of moral theology: John C. Ford, SJ who taught in the United States and Joseph Fuchs, SJ who taught in Rome. They held opposing views on the permissibility of the use of artificial contraception by Catholics. Michael P. has graciously reminded me in the past that other Jesuits appear to hold views different from those which I propose in my contributions to Mirror of Justice. It seems that times have not changed since the days of Fathers Ford and Fuchs. Since I need to conclude this post, I do so with the words of Pope Benedict XVI who recently sent a letter to the then Superior General of the Society of Jesus and to the members of the 35^th General Congregation now meeting in Rome. The Pope reminded us of what it is to be a Jesuit:

The Church has even more need today of this fidelity of yours… in this era which warns of the urgency of transmitting in an integral manner to our contemporaries—distracted by many discordant voices—the unique and immutable message of salvation which is the Gospel, “not as the word of men, but as it truly is, as the word of God”, which works in those who believe. That this might come to pass, it is indispensable—as earlier the beloved John Paul II reminded the participants of the 34^th General Congregation [1995]—that the life of the members of the Society of Jesus, as also their doctrinal research, be always animated by a true spirit of faith and communion in “humble fidelity to the teachings of the Magisterium.”

I for one try to remain faithful to this calling not because I am forced to but because I choose to.     RJA sj