Humanae Vitae: what if? (Context: JP2's "Theology of the Body")

Denver Catholic Register ^ | May 6, 2014 | George Weigel

[Mrs. Don-o]

Cardinal Carlo Caffarra of Bologna has long been a vocal supporter of Humanae Vitae’s teaching on the morally appropriate means of family planning. So it was noteworthy that Cardinal Caffarra recently conceded that, while Humanae Vitae’s conclusions were true, its presentation of those truths left something to be desired. As the cardinal put it, “No one today would dispute that, at the time it was published, Humanae Vitae rested on the foundations of a fragile anthropology, and that there was a certain ‘biologism’ in its argumentation.”

Which put me in mind of a document I discovered in 1997 in a dusty Cracovian library while ingesting copious amounts of antihistamines: “The Foundations of the Church’s Doctrine on the Principles of Conjugal Life.” Its somewhat academic title notwithstanding, that document represents one of the great “what if” moments in modern Catholic history.

The document was the final report of a theological commission established in 1966 by the archbishop of Cracow, Karol Wojtyla, to help him in his work on the Papal Commission for the Study of Problems of the Family, Population, and Birth Rate, inevitably dubbed the “Birth Control Commission” by the world media. According to one of the document’s authors, Father Andrzej Bardecki, the Polish theologians on Wojtyla’s commission had seen two drafts of an encyclical on conjugal morality and fertility regulation. One had been prepared by the Holy Office (now the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith); it strung together various papal statements on the issue without even mentioning Pius XII’s endorsement of natural family planning. And that, Bardecki told me, struck the Cracow theologians as “stupid conservatism.” The other draft had been sponsored by German cardinal Julius Doepfner; it represented a grave misreading of what God had inscribed in human sexuality “in the beginning,” the Cracovians believed, and did so in a way that emptied individual choices and acts of their moral significance.

So: were the only options “stupid conservatism” or the deconstruction of Catholic moral theology?

The Cracovians didn’t think so. They thought the truth of the Church’s teaching about conjugal morality and fertility regulation could be presented in a humane and personalistic way: one that acknowledged both the moral duty to plan one’s family and the demands of self-sacrifice in conjugal life; one that affirmed methods of fertility-regulation that respected the body’s dignity and its built-in moral “grammar;” one that that recognized the moral equality and equal moral responsibility of men and women, rather than leaving the entire burden of fertility-regulation on the wife. In proposing this fresh presentation of classic moral truths in a delicate area of pastoral care, the Cracovian theologians drew on the pioneering work done by their archbishop, Karol Wojtyla, in Love and Responsibility – work that Wojtyla, as John Paul II, would later develop in the Theology of the Body.

And so, what if? What if Paul VI had adopted the Cracovian approach to presenting the truths he taught in Humanae Vitae? What if the encyclical had been built upon a less formalistic, even abstract, view of the human person and human sexuality? What if Humanae Vitae had deployed a richly-textured and humanistic anthropology that was not susceptible to the charge of “biologism”?

1968 being the year it was, and the theological politics of the moment being what they were, there would still have been an uproar, I expect. But had the Cracovian report provided the framework for Humanae Vitae, the Church would have been better positioned to respond to that uproar.

The Catholic Church now has ample materials with which to make sense of, teach, and apply its settled convictions on the morality of marital love and procreation: the Theology of the Body; John Paul II’s magnificent 1981 apostolic exhortation, Familiaris Consortio; the pastorally sensitive 1997 Vademecum for Confessors on the Morality of Certain Aspects of Conjugal Life. And we have a brilliant analysis of the effects of a contraceptive culture in Mary Eberstadt’s Adam and Eve After the Pill (Ignatius Press), which is must-reading for every bishop attending the upcoming synods on the family.

Still, I wonder: what if?

[Mrs. Don-o]

I realize this will be seen as a kind of "specialist" question of distinctively Catholic theology, but I myself am convinced it has deep implications for the whole human race.

The Catholic Church teaches that the deconstruction of sex -- deliberately splitting off fertility from sexual intercourse --- is intrinsically wrong because it sabotages the real meaning of sexual love.

There are a lot of ways to say that: the above is just a way I say it.

Weigel says that although the moral judgment found in Humanae Viae is correct, Pope Paul VI didn't marshal the most persuasive arguments in the most understandable way. In other words, it wasn't in accessible language, and if you weren't some kind of academic philosopher, or you weren't already pre-committed to Pope Paul's conclusion, you didn't "get" it.

I think that's true.

on the other hand, I think Pope John Paul's "Theology of the Body" (TOTB) approach is much more humanly compelling. It puts our sexual natures, our desires, our yearning for love and belonging, into the big, big context of God's exquisite design of sexuality as a "sign" of transcendent divine love.

I think the "biologist" version of Natural Law found in NV persuades almost nobody; but a TOTB approach could make sense --- beautiful sense --- to almost everybody. Everybody who is at least open to thinking about the spiritual aspect of sexual love.

What do you say?

It seems important to get "sex" figured out deeply and truly, since the future of the human race depends on sex done right.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Cum tacent clament.
(While we are silent, we are screaming.)

Serva me, servato te
(Save me and I will save you.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFWqgI1e44A

Dum inter homines sumus colamus humanitatem.
(As long as we are among humans, let us be humane.)
(Seneca The Elder; ancient Roman philosopher)

Cum tacent clament.
(With silence, we shout.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Akb2hyw1aNg

[Tax-chick]

I really have trouble seeing it. Sexual desire is about having a hormonal urge and needing another person to satisfy it. In what way can that express love for the object?

[Mrs. Don-o]

In animals which manifest sexually reproductive differentiation, it's all about hormonal urge and the push to satisfy it, and that's good.

However for humans, every interaction has *many* levels of "something more" about it. Some of it just expressing animal joy and comfort; some of it a human desire to grow a family, a small society, and flourish across generations (a procreative interest), some of it manifesting human benevolence (I want to serve the other's need) and some of it expressing a love akin to that of the Holy Trinity.

I suppose that even people who don't accept texts from Genesis, Canticles or Ephesians as sacred, or who do not even consciously believe in God, could grasp that. I hope so. It seems to me it would be built into us, something we could learn by knowing ourselves better.

[Tax-chick]

It seems to me that the only way sex can be an expression of love, rather than self-serving, is if you are doing it for the good of the other person. By analogy, a baby is not expressing love when he wants to nurse. The mother is expressing love because she sacrifices her body to feed him.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Zackly.

[Ronaldus Magnus]

But had the Cracovian report provided the framework for Humanae Vitae, the Church would have been better positioned to respond to that uproar.

This is a rare instance of Weigel getting it wrong. Humanae Vitae laid down the (moral) law in a clear and unambiguous way. Only then after the howling of the liberals and secularists had died down could it be explained in a softer, slower, more gentile way.

Had Humanae Vitae been rolled out using the "less formalistic, even abstract, view of the human person and human sexuality" Weigel describes the Cracovian approach as having, the teaching would have been muddled and willfully misinterpreted by those who opposed it. The debate would have raged louder and louder in a unceasing crescendo to the point of schism or apostasy.

By clearly and definitively ending the discussion about a vital moral issue without the all the flowery language and poetic gobbledygook, Humanae Vitae saved the Church from a rapidly disintegrating culture. As Pope Paul VI wisely predicted, even though people at the time might not accept it, future generations would thank him and bless him for it. Thank you Pope Paul!

[Tax-chick]

I don’t suppose there would be much market for simply explaining that it’s an obligation, it’s supposed to be work, it’s supposed to be penitential.

[Salvation]

Fantastic quote. Mind if I borrow it?

[Salvation]

Have you attended a Marriage Encounter weekend? I don’t think you would be saying that if you had.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

I’ve read Humanae Vitae. Anyone can. It’s brief and lucid.

I can’t imagine a better defense of the Church’s Teaching based on the natural law.

[Dr. Sivana]

Agreed.

I was annoyed by this quotation:

As the cardinal put it, “No one today would dispute that, at the time it was published, Humanae Vitae rested on the foundations of a fragile anthropology, and that there was a certain ‘biologism’ in its argumentation.”

PLENTY of folks would have argued against the contention of HV "resting on a 'fragile anthropology'". And a certain "biologism" as PART of the argument is not necessarily a bad thing. As the learned Dr. Russell Hittinger warned us years ago, the bigger problem today is angelism, the idea of men and women considering themselves souls merely inhabiting a body, rather than the body being part of being truly human, making the Incarnation more remarkable. Angelism can lead to nosticism or Albigensianism or a hundred things. It CANNOT lead to Christ.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

Good point. We’re even descending from “angelism” to practical solipsism.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I join you in thanking Pope Paul VI for the teaching of Humanae Vitae which I think is the most important teaching since Trent, maybe since Nicaea. This is because Nicaea revolved around the personhood and natures of Christ, whereas HV is essential to understanding some central things about our human personhood and nature.

However, I found HV written in an opaque style. I do not lack ordinary reading comprehension, but honest to God, I read it with good will in my 20's, and to me it was like reading a treatise on hummingbird flight written by a hippopotamus. It seemed so entirely theoretical, almost as if the author himself doubted it could actually be lived.

Probably I overstate. I'll admit I lacked wisdom in my 20's (even moreso than now.)

In obedience I did accept HV, but had to entirely figure out other "reasons why" that made sense to me, since the what Blessed Paul VI wrote eluded my grasp altogether. I preemptively acknowledged it was Christ teaching me through the Church, and then argued myself into it my own way.

Of course I'm confessing my own limitation here, but it's a limitation probably shared by millions and millions of people. By my reckoning.

TOTB as presented by its married lay populizers, makes a whole lot of sense to me.

[Mrs. Don-o]

That's all to the good, too. Elizabeth Anscombe might have explained it that way, and lied it that way too, very ascetically. As you know, she's more or less my philosophic goddess. However, Anscombe is important to me because she proves that I can love someone without understanding them.

To me, Intelligent Design is an important point of entry. (I don't necessarily mean the Intelligent Design^TM as put forward by Mike Behe and those other Science guys, but just the idea that created nature, and our embodied human nature in particular, is really "wonderfully made," really a work of genius, really revelatory as well as providential.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Of course.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I mean Anscombe “lived” it, not “lied” it. Eek, I hate typos. Rheumatoid arthritis is my (main) excuse.

[Tax-chick]

No, I have not.

I have read Humanae Vitae. I’ve read Theology of the Body (the big book from the Pope) and some popular explanations of it. It’s all very beautiful and persuasive ... except real life.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

-— Probably I overstate. I’ll admit I lacked wisdom in my 20’s (even moreso than now.) -—

That probably had a lot to do with it. 8-) Have you read it since?

I think the difficulty for moderns is that we reject teleology reflexively. If one can accept that the human reproductive system is for human reproduction, that is, it is designed for a purpose (gasp!), then the rest follows easily.

There is also the psychological aversion to the idea of sexual responsibility that prevents a fair hearing. “How can that old celibate man tell ME what to do with MY body?”

[Salvation]

Pope John Paul II’s book was so deep that I read the one that made it a little easier by Christopher West.