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| Humanae Vitae: an Inspiration for John Paul II |
By Christopher West
This July 25th marks the 40th anniversary of one of the most controversial papal documents in history: Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vita which reaffirmed the traditional Christian teaching on the immorality of contraception. As TOB enthusiasts know, this is the document that inspired Cardinal Wojtyla to begin writing his "masterwork." As he himself says, his TOB constitutes "an extensive commentary on the doctrine contained precisely in Humanae Vitae" (TOB 133:2). For questions spring from Humanae Vitae "that run in some way through the whole of our reflections.... This is important from the point of view of structure and method" (TOB 133:4).
 You may have noticed above that I said "traditional Christian teaching" on contraception. Only in the last 50-70 years has this been viewed primarily as a "Catholic" issue. Until 1930, all Christian bodies stood together in their condemnation of any attempt to sterilize the marital act. That year, the Anglican Church broke with more than nineteen hundred years of uninterrupted Christian teaching. When the pill debuted in the early 1960's, the Catholic Church alone was retaining what in 30 short years had come to be seen as an archaic, even absurd position.
When Margaret Sanger and her followers started pushing contraception in the early 1900's, wise men and women – and certainly not just Catholics – predicted that severing sex from procreation would eventually lead to sexual and societal chaos. Today’s culture of adultery, divorce, premarital sex, STD’s, out-of-wedlock births, abortion, fatherless children, homosexuality, poverty, crime, drugs, and violence was all foreseen.
What’s the connection with contraception? If you've heard my talks, you've probably heard me outline this before. But it is important that we all understand how contraception has contributed to the mess we're in today. We should be able to explain this to anyone who asks why the Church is so "hung up" on contraception.
While today’s societal chaos is certainly complex, the following demonstrates the "inner logic" of contraception’s contribution. People are often tempted to do things they shouldn’t do. Deterrents within nature itself and within society help to curb these temptations and maintain order. For example, what would happen to the crime rate in a given society if jail terms suddenly ceased?
Apply the same logic to sex. People throughout history have been tempted to commit adultery. It’s nothing new. However, one of the main deterrents from succumbing to the temptation has been the fear of pregnancy. What would happen if this natural deterrent were taken away? As history demonstrates, rates of adultery would skyrocket. What’s one of the main causes of divorce? Adultery. Apply the same logic to pre-marital sex. Such behavior has, indeed, skyrocketed. Premarital sex, as a kind of "adultery in advance," is also a prime indicator of future marital breakdown.
It gets worse. Since no method of contraception is 100% effective, an increase in adultery and pre-marital sex will inevitably lead to an increase in "unwanted pregnancies." What’s next? So many people think contraception is the solution to the abortion problem. Take a deeper look and you’ll see that that’s like throwing gasoline on a fire to try to put it out. In the final analysis, there is only one reason we have abortion – because men and women are having sex without being "open to life." If this mentality is at the root of abortion, contraception does nothing but foster and afford this mentality.
Not everyone will resort to abortion of course. Some will choose adoption. Other mothers (most) will raise these children by themselves. Hence the number of children who grow up without a father (which has already been increased by the rise in divorce) will be compounded. And a culture of "fatherless" children inevitably becomes a culture of poverty, crime, drugs, and violence. All of these social ills compound exponentially from generation to generation since "fatherless" children are also much more likely to have out-of-wedlock births and, if they marry at all, divorce.
What about homosexuality? Our culture is impotent to resist the "gay agenda" because we have already accepted its basic premise with contraception – the reduction of sex to the exchange of pleasure. When openness to life is no longer an intrinsic part of the sexual equation, why does sexual behavior have to be with the opposite sex?
Our cultural situation can seem bleak. But we are people of great hope. We can even say, oh happy fault of the sexual (contraceptive) revolution that has won for us so great a theology of the body. The greatness of the TOB, of course, is simply that it gets us in touch with the Word made flesh. Therein lies our hope: in Christ the Bridegroom and his promise that he is with us. |
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