Tag: contraception

Fifty Reasons Why the Winnipeg Statement Should Be Recalled. By Monsignor Vincent Foy

Originally published in Catholic Insight, October, 2003.  Also published in “Birth Control: Is Canada Out of Step with Rome?”, Life Ethics Center, 2005.

Fifty Reasons Why the Winnipeg Statement Should be Recalled

By  Monsignor Vincent Foy

 
“But you, O Lord, are close; Your commands are truth,
Long have I known that your will is established forever.”    

–Psalm 119

This year is the 35th anniversary of the great charter of life and love called “Humanae Vitae.” It was signed by Pope Paul VI on July 25th, 1968. This year is also the 35th anniversary of a commentary on that encyclical given by the Canadian bishops. It was published on Friday September 27th, 1968 , at the Fort Garry Hotel in Winnipeg and was entitled “Canadian Bishops’ Statement on the Encyclical Humanae Vitae.”

The encyclical Humanae Vitae and the Winnipeg Statement do not say the same thing. The encyclical declares, invoking the authority of Christ, that contraception is to be “absolutely excluded as a licit means of regulating birth”( n. 14 ). The Winnipeg Statement, not on the authority of Christ, but on the authority of the Canadian bishops, says:

“Counselors may meet others who, accepting the teaching of the Holy Father, find that, because of particular circumstances they are involved in, what seems to them a clear conflict of duties, e.g., the reconciling of conjugal love and responsible parenthood with the education of children already born or with the health of the mother. In accord with the accepted principles of moral theology, if these persons have tried sincerely but without success to pursue a line of conduct in keeping with the given directives, they may be safely assured that, whoever honestly chooses that course which seems right to him, does so in good conscience” (n. 26 ).

While the Church teaches that the prohibition of contraception is a moral absolute, the Canadian bishops say it is not. It is the same as saying that there are circumstances in which fornication and adultery and sodomy are legitimate.

It is evident, both philosophically and empirically, that the Church cannot survive where the doctrine of Humanae Vitae is not taught and lived. In the Winnipeg Statement, through sophistry, are sown the seeds of the destruction of the Catholic Church in Canada. In truth, because of that Statement, the Church in Canada is now stricken and dying. There is no hope for a viable and evangelizing Church here until the teaching of that Statement is cancelled and replaced with the truth.

One other observation is in order. There is an ungodly similarity between the Winnipeg Statement and the statement that started the revolt against the truth about married love and contraception. Until 1930 all Christian communities considered contraception a grave moral evil. In 1908, at a Lambeth Conference, the Anglicans reaffirmed constant Christian doctrine in saying it “earnestly calls upon all Christian people to discontinue the use of all artificial means (of contraception) as demoralizing to character and hostile to national welfare” (Resolution 41). The betrayal of truth came at the Lambeth Conference in 1930. Then it was declared that a couple could use contraceptives “where there is a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood” (Resolution 15). By 1958 the Anglican Church considered contraception “a right and an important factor in Christian family life.” The Winnipeg Statement is a near clone of the Lambeth betrayal. Soon after it, countless Canadian Catholics claimed that the practice of contraception was a “right.”

It is not difficult to marshal many reasons why the Winnipeg Statement should be recalled. I cite here fifty, but that is an arbitrary number. Many taken individually, and certainly all taken together, indict and convict the Winnipeg Statement of the crime of leading our beloved Church in Canada deep into the Valley of Death.

1. The Winnipeg Statement is tantamount to blasphemy. It is God who determines what is morally good and evil. The Church authentically interprets this natural moral law (cf. Humanae Vitae, n.4).

“Contraception is to be judged objectively so profoundly unlawful, as never to be, for any reason justified. To think or say the contrary is equal to maintaining that in human life, situations may arise in which it is lawful not to recognize God as God” (Pope John Paul II, L’Osservatore Romano, Oct. 10th,1983).

The Winnipeg Statement permits the negation of divine law. Is this not blasphemous?

2. It is contrary to the first commandment of God. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us, Jesus summed up man’s duties to God in the words: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). We serve God with all our mind when, enlightened by faith and grace, that mind is conformed to the mind of God through being conformed to the mind of His Church. In the Winnipeg Statement that conformity is tragically absent.

3. The Winnipeg Statement is against the second great commandment of God: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Mark 12:31). In the spiritual order, that order which concerns itself with eternal salvation, contraception is an act of hate. It is a grave offence against one’s marriage vows which consents to the eternal damnation of one’s spouse.

4. It puts into doubt defined doctrine concerning the sufficiency of grace. The Council of Trent declares to be heretical that opinion which says it is impossible to keep God’s commandments. Humanae Vitae points out the sufficiency of God’s grace to keep the divine natural law prohibiting contraception (cf. nos. 20,21). The Winnipeg Statement says: “A certain number of Catholics find it either extremely difficult or even impossible to make their own all elements of this doctrine” (n.17). Paragraph 26 implies that the law against contraception cannot be observed by some.

5. It substitutes the authority of man for the authority of Christ. The encyclical is given with the authority of Christ (n.6). Bishop Alexander Carter, President of the Canadian Bishops’ Conference in 1968, said: “We faced the necessity of making a Statement which many felt could not be a simple Amen, a total and formal endorsement of the doctrine of the encyclical—We had to reckon with the fact of widespread dissent from some points of his (the Pope’s) teaching among the Catholic faithful, priests, theologians, and probably some of our own number” (America, October 19, 1968, p.349). So human authority was substituted for the divine.

6. It has increased tolerance for dissent. The eradication of the destructive evil of dissent in the Church was the prime purpose of the extraordinary synod of bishops in 1967. The bishops declared, concerning all dissent, whether in doctrinal matters, or in pastoral or liturgical questions:

“Those who are rash or imprudent should be warned in all charity; those who are contumacious should be removed from office” (Ratione habita, October 28, 1967).

The Winnipeg Statement undercut the directives of this synod and make its implementation in Canada practically impossible. So we have had dissent in Catholic seminaries, colleges and schools. It has given rise to a dissenting “Catholic” press, e.g. Catholic New Times and The Island Catholic News. It was a factor in the “legitimization” of selling dissenting literature in “Catholic” bookstores and parish pamphlet racks.

7. It is against Church unity by endorsing a national morality. Perhaps for the first time since the so-called Reformation, we see bishops passing judgment on the authoritative teaching of the Supreme Pontiff. In an editorial in the Toronto Catholic Register regarding the Winnipeg Statement we read: “It will take weeks, perhaps months, for Canadians to appreciate and really believe what happened at Winnipeg last week. It has not happened in the Church anywhere for centuries. And in Canada perhaps for the first time in our history we can become a truly Canadian Church in the deepest sense of the word” (October 5th, 1968).

8. Contrary to some, the Winnipeg Statement is not magisterial. In the book “Married in the Lord” (Liturgical Commission, Diocese of London, 1976, 1978) it is asserted that, concerning statements of national hierarchies, “their official declarations are official teachings of the magisterium of the Church” (p. 61). This is false. Bishops exercise their office of teaching only in so far as they are in communion with the head of the episcopal college, the Holy Father (cf. Canon 375 of the Code of Canon Law). Canadian Catholics have a right to magisterial teaching from their bishops on the vital issue of human life.

9. The Winnipeg Statement has clouded the meaning of collegiality. The claim has been made that the Statement is collegial. Collegiality exists only in union with the head of the College of bishops, the Holy Father (cf. Vatican II, Lumen gentium, n. 21).

10. The Winnipeg Statement advocates relativism or what is called situation ethics.The phrase in paragraph 26, “Whoever honestly chooses that course which seems right to him does so in good conscience,” is a cluster bomb attack on objective morality. What if the course which seems right to him does not seem right to her? What if his counsellor or confessor does not agree with her consoler or confessor? What if the course which seems right to him or her kills a human person? Surely this moral relativism cries out for redress.

11. It teaches an erroneous doctrine on conscience. The Winnipeg Statement says, in effect, that in some circumstances one may form one’s conscience in opposition to God’s law. Vatican II says that the spouses “must always be governed according to a conscience dutifully conformed to the ‘divine law itself’ ” (Gaudium et spes, n.50). The Winnipeg Statement, in rejecting this teaching, has deformed the consciences of countless Canadian Catholics.

12. The Winnipeg Statement was not corrected by the lengthy “Statement on the Formation of Conscience” which the Canadian Bishops published in December 1973. While that was a good statement on conscience, it carefully avoided any mention of the Winnipeg Statement or the question of contraception or even Humanae Vitae. The result was that many texts and marriage preparation courses continued to quote the Winnipeg Statement as though the Statement on conscience had never been written.

13. The Winnipeg Statement was an act of disobedience to the Holy See. Just before the release of the encyclical on human life, bishops were asked through Cardinal Cicognani, Secretary of State, to stand firm with the Pope in the presentation of the Church’s teaching and “to explain and justify the reason for it.” This mandate of the Holy See was deliberately rejected. As Father Edward Sheridan, S.J., one of the dissenting “periti” (experts) at Winnipeg, wrote: “The Statement contained no general profession of assent to the whole teaching of Human Life; and nothing that could be interpreted as adding the local authority of the Canadian Hierarchy to that of the encyclical in general.” (America, October 19th, 1968, p349).

14. It is not a right pastoral application of Humanae vitae. The Winnipeg Statement has been defended on the grounds that it is only a pastoral application of Humanae vitae. Bishops have said: “We tried at Winnipeg to make a pastoral application of the encyclical.” But right pastoral application is always in accordance with the truth, and the Winnipeg Statement is in accordance with a lie: that contraception is not always a grave moral evil. In truth, the “pastoral application” of the Winnipeg Statement is a betrayal, a deceit and a fraud.

15. It is not enough to say: “The Winnipeg Statement needs only to be properly interpreted.” There is no way, if words mean what they say, that Paragraph 26 can be interpreted in accordance with the Church’s teaching on conscience.

16. Largely as a result of the Winnipeg permissiveness, Canadian theologians and others have felt free to dissent from the Church’s teaching not only on contraception but on a wide spectrum of magisterial teachings, e.g. on homosexuality, the ordination of women, on the fundamental option, even on abortion. Witness the revolt of 63 Quebec “theologians” against the encyclical Veritatis splendor in 1993.

17. It has led to discord between bishops and bishops, bishops and priests, priests and priests, pastors and associates, priests and laity, husbands and wives.

18. The resulting confusion in Canada over life issues has been an impediment to evangelization. A Church divided against itself does not present an attractive model of Christian living.

19. The Winnipeg Statement has been a major factor in Canada’s suicidal birthrate. The birth rate among Catholics is no higher than among the general population. Once Catholic Quebec has gone from having the highest birthrate in Canada to having the lowest, with now the highest rate of male and female sterilization in all of North America.

20. It has been a major factor in Canada in the crisis of vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Such vocations are in general the fruit of parents living their Faith.

21. Directly or indirectly, it has destroyed or weakened the faith of many Canadian Catholics.

22. Whereas hope and joy should permeate any commentary on the charter of life and love called Humanae vitae, the Winnipeg Statement is sprinkled with expressions of doom and gloom. In paragraph 34 we read: “We conclude by asking all to pray that the Holy Spirit will continue to guide his Church through all darkness and suffering.” Again, “We, the People of God, cannot escape this hour of crisis,”(ibid.). It concludes with a quotation from Cardinal Newman: “Lead kindly light amidst the encircling gloom.” It has been the Winnipeg Statement that has brought to the Church in Canada an encircling gloom.

23. It has, in general, lowered the level of grace and love in the Church in Canada, leaving countless Catholics open to the seduction of secular relativism.

24. It resulted in the death of our Catholic hospitals. In 1970 a Medical-Moral Guide was approved by the Canadian bishops for use in Catholic hospitals. While it condemned sterilization as a means of contraception (article 18) and contraception itself (article 19), it attached this addendum: “Reference should be made to the Canadian bishops’ documents on the pastoral application of this general directive.” That was the death-knell for our Catholic hospitals. Soon they went the Winnipeg way, and were allowing direct sterilization and the prescription of contraceptive and abortifacient pills and devices for “pastoral” reasons.

25. The Winnipeg Statement was the seed bed which gave birth to the new and disastrous sex-education courses like Fully Alive. In paragraph 33 the bishops said: “Everywhere the problem of sex education and family life is being studied. And this education is happily being deepened by scientific research and diffused through the creative use of mass media. We pledge ourselves to the pastoral priority of encouraging and promoting these programs whenever and wherever possible.”

26. It is corrosive of the authority of Canadian bishops. Bishops maintain their divinely endowed authority through their union with the Holy Father. Deviation from this unity is disastrous to the bishops’ right to be heard and obeyed. Early in the Winnipeg meeting a motion was passed forbidding a minority report. It was claimed that the Bishops’ Statement would be merely a pastoral, not a doctrinal, one. This erroneous claim was an infringement on bishops’ authority in their own dioceses. The effect of the Winnipeg Statement was to diminish respect for the Canadian bishops authority not only in Canada, but throughout the Catholic world.

27. The Winnipeg Statement was not corrected, as some have said, by the “Statement on Family Life and Related Matters,” of the Plenary Assembly of Canadian bishops on April 18, 1969. In that Statement the bishops said: “Nothing could be gained and much lost by any attempt to rephrase our Winnipeg Statement. We stand squarely behind that position but we feel it our duty to insist on a proper interpretation of the same.”

28. The Winnipeg Statement, in effect, put the Canadian bishops in thrall to their own bureaucracy and to dissenting theologians. Fifteen Directors of the Canadian Catholic Conference signed a petition calling for a “Vatican II approach.” They said that a large number of priests were agonizing “in acute crises of conscience because of the apparent directives of Humanae Vitae.” The “periti” or so-called experts at Winnipeg were dissenters Fathers Edward Sheridan, S.J., André Naud and Charles St. Onge. Surely the first requirement of those selected to advise the bishops should be their fidelity to the Magisterium.

29. Because of their adherence to the Winnipeg Statement, all subsequent programs of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, e.g., the Working Paper: Responsible Procreation, 1983, have proven fruitless. They have ignored the fundamental cause of most family problems to-day: the contraceptive mentality

30. It has silenced many pulpits. Many priests have been hesitant to preach against contraception not only because of a backlash from parishioners but even from their bishops. At least one bishop told his priests not to preach on Humanae vitae.

31. Some priests were marginalized because they dared to dissent from the Winnipeg Statement. Assent to the dissent of the Winnipeg Statement was sometimes rewarded with promotion.

32. It has unfitted some priests for the hearing of confessions. It is well known that some priests do not refuse absolution from the grave sin of contraception even when there is no purpose of amendment. This invalidates the absolution.

33. It has led to erroneous confessional directives in some dioceses.

34. In a chain reaction, it has lowered the level of ethics among Catholic politicians, judges, lawyers, doctors, pharmacists, nurses, hospital staff, teachers and catechists.

35. It has facilitated anti-life and immoral government legislation, as predicted by Pope Paul VI (“Humanae Vitae“, n. 17). It made it more difficult to discipline nominal Catholics like Mark McGuigan, Pierre Trudeau, John Turner, and Jean Chrétien., who have been principally responsible for the chasm between Church and State in the area of divine moral law.

36. It has led to an aging society with all the concomitant negative societal effects, including a disproportionate financial burden on the shoulders of the young.

37. It has often deprived spouses of married love. Married love never separates the unitive and procreative natures of the marital act. With true married love come the joy and the graces which God showers upon those who are living lives conformed to His will.

38. In a true sense, the Winnipeg Statement permits extra-marital sex. Marriage consent is an act of the will by which each party gives to the other, permanently and exclusively, the right to those acts which of their nature tend to procreation. It does not give the right to contraceptive acts. These are acts of marital unchastity and infidelity.

39. The Winnipeg Statement has often pitted spouses against one another. It has been used as a tool for the seduction of one’s spouse into contraceptive conduct.

40. It has led to countless objective sacrileges. Countless contracepting couples receive Holy Communion with no purpose of giving up the practice of contraception.

41. Through its tolerance of contraception, the Winnipeg Statement has led to a lowered respect for women. In the words of Humanae vitae, through contraceptive practice husbands “come to the point of considering her (the wife) as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion” (n.17).

42. Many good couples who have been faithful to the Church’s teaching, often at the expense of great personal sacrifice, have felt betrayed and unsupported by their shepherds.

43. The Winnipeg Statement has often made right teaching of Natural Family Planning more difficult. Natural Family Planning is often taught without moral evaluation or reference to the “grave” cause required for its practice.

44. The Winnipeg Statement has been responsible for many childless homes and deprived countless children of brothers and sisters.

45. The Winnipeg Statement has deprived countless children of proper role models. Contracepting parents cannot give their children a right example of chastity and self-giving.

46. It has been the cause of many marital breakups. Contraceptive practice is spiritually an act of mutual hate. The subconscious dynamisms of the contraceptive relationship erode mutual love and respect. A true coroner’s report on the break-up of many marriages would read: “Cause of Death: the Winnipeg Statement.”

47. It has been the cause of invalid marriages. To exclude the right to have children, whether for a time, indefinitely or forever, whether on the part of one or both parties, or by mutual agreement, invalidates the marriage. Numerous couples have invoked the Winnipeg Statement to assert a “right” to exclude children and have brought this intention into a defective marital consent.

48. The Winnipeg Statement has adversely affected married life not only in Canada but in many other countries. One example was the neo-modernist book “Christ Among Us,” by ex-priest Anthony Wilhelm. It approvingly quoted the Winnipeg Statement. Before its Imprimatur was removed by order of the Holy See in 1984, 3,000,000 copies of it had been sold throughout the world. In 1968 there was an immense diaspora of the Winnipeg error by such periodicals as Time magazine, the Tablet, America, the National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, and Catholic Mind. In Australia, it was promoted by a book called “Catholics Ask“, by Father Bill O’Shea.

49. The Winnipeg Statement does not distinguish between abortifacient and non-abortifacient contraceptives. It has led to the killing of countless persons through abortifacient pills and devices.

50. Even the principal author of paragraph 26 of the Winnipeg Statement recognized its deceptive wording. In a private letter dated June 15, 1995, the late Cardinal Carter wrote: “I am not prepared to defend paragraph 26 (of the Winnipeg Statement) totally. In a sense, the phraseology was misleading and could give the impression that the bishops were saying that one was free to dissent at will from the Pope’s teaching.”

Fifty reasons have been given why the Winnipeg Statement should be revoked. There are many more. In truth their number is legion. There are as many reasons as there are persons who have been infected or may yet be infected with its deadly virus.

In the final analysis, the Winnipeg Statement is evil because it is a betrayal of the Truth—the Truth about Life and Love.

Christ said: “I am the Truth.” He also said: “For this I came into the world, to give witness to the Truth.” (John 18; 37). He entrusted the Truth to His Church, to be transmitted through Peter, the Apostles, and their successors. So St. Paul could say: “The Truth of Christ is in me” ( 2 Corinthians 11:16 ). So the Truth about Life is taught in the first century in the Didache. So in 1978, Pope Paul II would say three times, in confirming Humanae Vitae in his last sermon in St. Peter’s: “I did not betray the Truth.” We are considering here the most fundamental of all Truths—that dealing with Life and Love. Pope John Paul VI expressed this verity in these words: “The promotion of the Culture of Life should be the highest priority of our societies…. If the right to life is not defended decisively as a condition for all other rights of the person, all other references to human rights remain deceitful and illusory” (February 14, 2001).

Put flesh on the Winnipeg Lie, make it operative, and it turns into a Frankenstein’s monster capable of destroying the family, society, and the Church. That is now a work in progress. We have seen how civil society is corrupted by contraception. In Canada first came the law allowing the sale of contraceptives, then abortion (1969), then the licensing of widespread pornography, and now the betrayal of homosexuals by the blasphemy of homosexual “marriage.” All of this came about with the complicity of nominal Catholic politicians.

We ought to pray for our bishops, by divine providence successors to the Apostles and guardians and transmitters of the Truth of Christ. The great majority of living Canadian bishops had nothing to do with the Winnipeg Statement. May God strengthen them to reject it.

Catholics justly beg that the Truth of Humanae Vitae be taught in Canada, because it must be taught and known and loved before it is lived.

The Moral Problems of Contraception; An in depth look at the fundamental problems of artificial contraception. By Monsignor Vincent Foy

Preface

Published as six short articles in Celebrate Life, 2002.  They were written on the invitation of Judie Brown, President of the American Life League and are a development of a short section in my booklet “From Humanae Vitae to Veritatis Splendor”.  The articles were later published in booklet form by St. Joseph’s Workers, 2002.

_______________

The Moral Problems of Contraception:   An in depth look at the fundamental problems of artificial contraception

By Monsignor Vincent Foy

Scan_20140309

“God has not called us to immorality, but to holiness”

(St. Paul to the Thessalonians)

Father John Hardon, S.J. (died Dec. 30, 2000) was surely one of the greatest theologians of the last century. Towards the end of his life, he gave a lecture entitled, “Our Greatest Moral Responsibility: to convert the Contraceptive Mentality.” There are great evils in the world today but it does not take much reflection to conclude that the greatest is the Contraceptive Mentality, parent of the Culture of Death.

The Contraceptive Mentality is anti-God, anti-Church, anti-society, anti-family, anti-spousal and anti-self. First we consider it in its most evil aspect as a revolt against God.

Contraception is Anti-God

The Church constantly reminds us that man is not the creator of human life but its procreator with God. The encyclical Humanae Vitae repeatedly reminds us of God’s overriding role. “Married persons are the free and responsible collaborators of God the Creator.” (n.1). Married persons “collaborate with God in the generation and education of new lives.” (n.8). The spouses “must conform their activity to the creative intention of God.” (n.10).  The magisterium teaches with the authority of Christ that there is an inseparable connection “willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning.” (n.12).

The primary evil of contraception is that it puts up a barrier against God’s creative will, a horrendous crime when seen in all its implications in time and eternity. It is therefore what is called a mortal sin; through denying a possible life to another the perpetrator kills his or her own soul. The contracepting person gravely violates the commandment of God “Thou shalt not kill.” In one sense contraception is worse than abortion. The aborted child will live forever in that degree of happiness which God’s mercy lovingly bestows. The contracepted child, if we can so speak of a child that will never be, but might have been a great saint, is sacrificed to the lust of should-have-been parents.

Also guilty of a grave offence against God are the cooperators in contraception. These are the purveyors of pills, condoms and devices that are anti-life and often abortifacient. Guilty also are bishops, pastors, confessors, theologians and counselors who lead others astray.

So grave are the offences against God’s co-creative will that St. Paul likens them to idolatry. He says: “Put to death whatever in your nature is rooted on earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desires; and that lust which is idolatry. These are the sins which provoke God’s wrath.” (Letter to the Colossians, 3).

We know from history that when sins against life become what we might call a critical mass, God’s anger does blaze forth. We have a striking example of this in the book of the prophet Jeremiah. He foretold the great evil that would come upon the Jewish people because of their idolatrous infanticide. He said: “The kings of Judah have filled the place with the blood of the innocent. They have built high places for Baal to immolate their sons in fire as holocausts to Baal.” What was God’s punishment? “All Judah I will deliver to the king of Babylon or slay them with the sword.” (cf. Jeremiah, 5). Is not contraception a willingness to offer children to the Baal of lust? In addition to other great evils, surely to be living in the dark and awful state of mortal sin is worse than banishment to Babylon.

Despite the gravity of their sin, those who have contracepted need not despair. Most urgently, in His love and mercy, God is calling them to repentance. As St. Jerome says: “Great mercy forgives great sins.” But there should be no delay.” Now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation.” All Catholics ought to pray for those spiritually dead because of contraception. All ought to wage spiritual war by prayer and penance against what we could call the unholy jihad of contraceptive practice.

Contraception is Anti-Church

The Church has been described as the continuation of the salvific mission of Christ to the world. Vatican II tells us that “The Church has the duty by divine mandate of going out into the whole world and preaching the Gospel to all men.” It also tells us that the whole Church is missionary and that the work of evangelization is a fundamental duty of the people of God. It adds: “Let all realize that their first and most important obligation toward the spread of the faith is this: to lead a profoundly Christian life.” (Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church, n.30). The Saints are missionaries “par excellence.” If all Catholics led holy lives the whole world would soon be Catholic.

The great drag on the Church’s missionary activity is those Catholics whose sinful lives ignore the call to holiness. In the magnificent document “Evangelization in the Modern World” (Dec. 8, 1975) Pope Paul VI says: “The Lord wishes His Church to be universal. He willed that it should be a universal Church having no bounds or limits except those, alas, which are to be found in the minds and hearts of sinful men.” (n.61).

Today the greatest enemy of the Church’s missionary activity is not the world around her but the deep internal wound of the contraceptive mentality. This wound impedes the Church’s mission in many ways.

Unity in teaching the truth, including the teaching of the Gospel of Life, is essential to evangelization. Tragically, that unity does not exist. After the publication of the encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968, twelve national Conferences of Bishops so distorted the teaching of the encyclical as to virtually destroy it. Among the worst statements were those of the Bishops of Belgium, the Netherlands, West Germany and Canada.

Illustrative of the worst is the so-called Winnipeg Statement of the Canadian Bishops of Sept. 27, 1968. In paragraph 26 of that Statement they said that in some circumstances the spouses “may be safely assured that whoever follows that course which seems right to him does so in good conscience.” Of this John F. Kippley says: “A more misleading statement would be hard to imagine. There are no principles of moral theology that allow a person to engage in actions taught by the Church to be objectively immoral, whether such actions be adultery, contraception, fornication, or sodomy. And, of course what applies to one behavior applies to all.” (Sex and the Marriage Covenant, The Couple to Couple league, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1991, p. 145).

Added to the teaching of some hierarchies was that of dissenting theologians and these have been in the hundreds, including brilliant but mistaken men like Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan. Others are Hans Kung, Andrew Greeley, Charles Davis, Edward Schillebeeckx and Richard McCormick. So we have what could be called optional, regional or national morality, supported by many so-called Catholic newspapers and periodicals. This dissent, spread like anthrax spores, has stricken the Church’s Mystical Body and gravely compromised her saving apostolate.

Those who contracept are spiritually dead, objectively unfitted for the reception of Holy Communion and supernatural merit. They are far from giving the example of a Christian life.  Given that the majority of spouses of childbearing age in Europe, the U.S., Canada and other countries are contracepting, one can see how grave is this block to the Church’s Christ-given mission of converting the world.

Widespread contraception, with suicidal birthrates, leaves the Church without adequate vocations to the priesthood, religious life, and missionary work. Religious vocations and a faithful dedicated laity come generally from families faithful to the Church.

The contraceptive mentality reduces the Church’s ability to withstand assault from without. The more Catholics are reduced in relative numbers and in those giving exemplary example, the more likely are they to be oppressed. Catholics become victims of a secularized press and other media, discriminated against by civil laws and unable to effectively respond.

The principal means of overcoming the contraceptive mentality is prayer, for and by those who are contracepting. Pope John Paul II said: “Prayer is the basic prerequisite to save the Church.” That prayer must be humble, of sinners for sinners. The book of Sirach reminds us that “The prayer of the humble pierces the clouds.” Out of prayer will come the grace to support those efforts and groups fighting bravely on behalf of Life. The Church our Mother, through whom we are born into grace and have the hope of salvation, is in peril. Do we have the Faith and love to help her? May we pray with the breviary oration: “Father, help us to work generously for the salvation of the world so that Thy Church may bring us and all mankind into Thy presence. Grant this through Christ our Lord.”

Contraception is Anti-society

We are social creatures. We live and move in what is called the social order. It exists to promote justice and order and peace.

Fundamental to a just social order is respect for human life. Pope John Paul II expressed it this way on February 14, 2001: “The promotion of the Culture of Life should be the highest priority of our societies…If the right to life is not defended decisively as a condition for all other rights of the person, all other references to human rights remain deceitful and illusory.”

Fostering the Culture of Life does not only mean respect for life from conception until natural death. It means also repudiation of contraception, the root cause of all other attacks on human life. Contraception, which shows a willingness to sacrifice life to lust, is a fuse which ignites a whole chain of evils destructive of a just society, from abortion to euthanasia.

Worse than the ten plagues which devastated Egypt in the time of Moses, the contraceptive mentality is a multi-pronged attack on society. It tends to permeate more and more social structures and even creates its own institutions.

The most powerful and influential structure of the moral order is government. In his encyclical Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI warned us that the contraceptive mentality would place a dangerous weapon in the hands of public authorities. He said: “Who will stop rulers from favoring, from even imposing upon their people, if they were to consider it necessary, the method of contraception which they judge to be most efficacious?” (n.17). In vain did he appeal to rulers when he said: “Do not allow the morality of your people to be degraded; do not permit that by legal means practices contrary to the natural and divine law be introduced into the fundamental cell, the family” (Ibid., n.23). In general, governments have turned a deaf ear to that urgent plea.

Many non-governmental institutions (called NGOs) spread the contraceptive virus. Most influential of these is the United Nations. Driven by a tyrannical secularism, it has tied help to poorer countries to the support of programs of contraception, abortion, sterilization and acceptance of homosexual and lesbian unions. Other organizations with similar agendas and supporting the U.N. are International Planned Parenthood, the Population Council which is sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Women’s Environment and Development Organization and the Worldwatch Institute.

The contraceptive mentality diminishes the level of love in society and increases the level of selfishness and lust. In education, it promotes sex-education and the resultant corruption of the young. In hospital care it leads to sterilization, abortion, and euthanasia. In the media, it tends toward license, vulgarity, pornography, and increases hostility towards God and religion.

Not least of the self-inflicted wounds caused by the contraceptive mentality is the high economic price. There is the high price tag for contraception, abortion, AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases and family break-ups. There is the high cost of age imbalance, with heavier and heavier burdens placed on the young, who must care for their contracepting elders. It is estimated that by the year 2050, one third of the people in Western countries will be over sixty. Social security systems and pension plans will be inadequate and the standard of living drastically reduced.

One does not have to be an Isaiah or Jeremiah to predict that, if the contraceptive mentality continues to prevail, our society is headed for disaster. If one needs convincing, one may read such books as The Demographic Crisis by Michael Schooyans (Central Bureau, St. Louis) or Death of the West by Pat Buchanan. With statistical proofs it is shown that, if the present course is continued, by the year 2050 the US will be a Third World nation. A similar fate awaits Europe. In a chapter entitled “Where have all the children gone?” Pat Buchanan tells us why it is unlikely that the West can solve the demographic crisis before it leads to “The Death of the West.”

It is only by a miracle of grace and mercy that the contraceptive mentality can be turned into one of love and life. The hour is late; a dark night of the social order approaches. We need to be heroic in our support of pro-life causes. We need to recognize that contraception is the new terrorism. In greater and greater numbers we need to March for Life. We need to pray and do penance, pray and do penance, pray and do penance. May God help us and may Our Blessed Mother intercede for us.

Contraception is Anti-Family

Reflecting on the marriage covenant, Pope John Paul II says: “The communion of love between God and His people, a fundamental part of the revelation and faith experience of Israel, finds a meaningful expression in the marriage covenant which is established between a man and woman – their bond of love becomes the image and symbol of the covenant uniting God with His people.” (Familiaris Consortio, n.12).

Contraception makes a lie of the marriage covenant. There is no longer total self-giving in the marriage act. It no longer symbolizes the union of God with His people or Christ with His Church. It is a broken, defaced mockery of that union. Contraception replaces self-giving love with the hate of marital abuse. Because it is a species of infidelity within the marriage, it makes infidelity outside the marriage more likely. In truth, it makes spouses enemies of one another, cooperators in each other’s’ spiritual ruin. When the marriage is entered into with the intention to exclude the right to children, that union is null and void.

Even when the spouses are in good faith, the subconscious dynamisms of the contraceptive mentality are gnawing away at their union. Contraception always divides, never unites. The repelling effect of this unnatural procedure is like a centrifugal force which alienates one from the other.

When contraceptives are also abortifacients, as in most cases, the family home becomes a killing ground. Human persons, made in God’s image, are conceived and sent to sewer tombs without the chance to answer God’s call to holiness. It is a direct confrontation with God’s loving co-creating will.

The deliberately childless marriage has anti-family effects of immense proportions, for children are often the bond that cements the parents’ love. An illicitly diminished family also suffers. The children who are born, sometimes unwanted, are love-deprived. They are also deprived of brothers and sisters who should have been but are not. They cannot but be affected by the example of hedonistic parents and a home in which true marital harmony cannot exist.

Added to all this is the high rate of marital breakdown which must be attributed to contraceptive practice. Oral contraceptives were introduced in 1960. According to Princeton University historian Lawrence Stone, “The scale of marital breakdown in the West since 1960 has no historical precedent that I know of and seems unique.” (Detroit Free Press, May 11, 2000).

In sum, the contraceptive attack on the family is a tragedy of horrendous proportions. Only supernatural means can stop it. Are we willing to pray and sacrifice enough?

Contraception is Anti-Spousal

The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that marriage is “by its very nature ordered to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring.” (n.1601). Since it is ordered to the good of the spouses it can and should be a means to help them pursue together their glorious call to holiness.

That one spouse ought to be the support of the other derives from the nature and closeness of their union. The two have become one flesh, a symbol of the fruitful union of Christ and His Church. The closeness of the marital union is described by St. Francis de Sales: “God joins the husband to the wife with His own blood: and therefore the union is so strong that the soul ought rather to be separated from the body of the one and of the other, than the husband from the wife.” This emphasizes how tragic is that conduct by which one party would lead the other away from goodness and grace.

The mutual help which is an end or purpose of marriage is destroyed by contraception. Contraception degrades married love, defaces it beyond recognition, transforms it more radically than was Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde. It makes the spouses deadly spiritual enemies of one another. It turns love into hate and does this in manifold ways.

Because contraception is a mortal sin, destroying grace in the soul, consent to it means consent of one spouse to the eternal damnation of the other. It is a frightful betrayal to cooperate in the exchange of the gold of grace for the dross of lust.

By contraception one spouse is willing to unfit the other for the reception of Holy Communion, or for any supernatural merit.

By contraception one spouse is willing to deny to the other all the great goods which might otherwise come from children and parenting.

When one party persuades the other to contracept, there is an act of seduction. When one objects, but submits under pressure, there is a violation of conscience and person, which is akin to marital rape. When the contraceptive means are known to be abortifacient, as with the birth-control pill and intrauterine devices, both become murderers by intent.

Finally, if one enters marriage intending to deny to the other the right to that act which of its nature leads to procreation, the union is null and void. The marriage acts become acts of fornication.

Perhaps now we see how important it is for spouses to reject the evil of contraception. In the words of St. Augustine, we are living in the land of the dying, but this land of the dying is God’s way of leading us to the land of eternal life. We ought to pray for those who are contracepting. God’s mercy calls them to repentance, restoration to peace, grace, true love, and then to eternal life.

Contraception is Anti-Self

By our nature we have an inescapable love of ourselves. But because God is love and we are conceived in and for love, God has decreed that true love of self cannot exist without love of others. So we have the paradox that the more we love God and others, to that degree do we truly love ourselves.

Christ tells us, that: “Great love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13). This gives us some insight into the abysmal lack of love in the act of contraception. It so far departs from a willingness to give one’s life for another as to be willing to sacrifice a life for one’s selfish lust. It violates the great commandment of love of others and the sixth commandment of God. (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, n.2376). Spiritually, contraception is profoundly anti-self, inflicting upon oneself the ultimate wound, that abuse of freedom which is called mortal sin. Unrepented, that sin is a bar to eternal life.

Aside from guilt and motivation, contraception has its own intrinsic negative dynamics. It is a selfish act, creating a selfish person; a lustful act, creating a lustful person; an exploitative act, creating an exploiting person. It usually becomes a habit, blinding the mind and weakening the will as few other sins do. It is not surprising that many contracepting Catholics abandon the practice of their Faith or lose their Faith. Many abandon the Sacrament of Penance and add sacrilege to sin by receiving Holy Communion.

When considering the anti-self effect of contraception we must keep in mind that we are not only referring to the immediate user of contraception. Also guilty are all formal cooperators who promote or condone contraception, whether confessors, counselors, teachers, doctors, nurses, or others. These also are self-destroyers.

So concludes our brief discussion of the evil of contraception. It is anti-God, anti-Church, anti-society, anti-family, anti-spousal, and anti-self. When one considers this evil in all its sociological and theological aspects and its gross attack on the Culture of Life, its defense and promotion become a mystery of perversity.

While contraception threatens to bury multitudinous souls in its shroud of hate and death, there remains hope. God knocks at the door of every soul. In His mercy He hears the prayers not only of the innocent but of the penitent. God does not want the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live. The juggernaut of contraception can be stopped by prayer, sacrifice, and the Sacraments. These means have been described by Pope John Paul II as the most powerful in human history. Will enough of us use them?

Book Review of Fr. Philip S. Kaufman’s “Why You Can Disagree and Remain a Faithful Catholic”.

Foreword 

Father Kaufman, a Benedictine monk, did immense harm through his defense of dissent from basic Catholic teachings.  He went on lecture tours, including one in Canada, promoting his grave errors.  This review was written at the request of Father Paul Marx, also a Benedictine, founder of the great Human Life International movement.  It appeared in the Homiletic and Pastoral Review of February 1991.  In shorter form it was reprinted in the Catholic Register February 22, 1992.

 

Book review of “Why you can disagree and remain a faithful Catholic”  by Philip S. Kaufman (Myer Stone Books, 2012 South Yost Avenue, Bloomington, Ind., 47403, 1989, PB $9.95)

John Cardinal Krol accurately said:  “The Conciliar Decrees on Ecumenism (n.l.), on Mission Activity (n.6) and the Apostolic Exhortation on Evangelization 9 (n.77) clearly state that divisions among Christians contradict the will of Christ, scandalize the world, damage the work of preaching the gospel to every creature and deprive many people of access to the faith” (Preface to:  Symposium on the Magisterium: A Positive Statement, Daughters of St. Paul, 1978).

Why You Can Disagree and Remain a Faithful Catholic by Fr. Philip Kaufman, a Jewish convert, gives us one more divisive, scandalous and damaging attack on the Church’s magisterium, the teaching authority given her by Christ.  It belongs to the genre of “Faithful Dissent” by Charles Curran.  It has no imprimatur but the laudatory Foreward by Richard A. McCormick, tells us much about that Jesuit theologian.   So does Fr. Andrew Greeley in recommending the book.

The author, born in 1911, has been a Benedictine monk for nearly 50 years.  Until his recent retirement he taught adult education at St. John’s Abbey, Collegeville, Minn. He has been spreading his dissent in articles for a long time, e.g., “Abortion:  Catholic Pluralism and the Potential for Dialogue,”  Cross Currents, Spring 1987, pp 78- 86.

Following the pattern of most dissenting theologians these past twenty some years, the focus of attack is Humanae Vitae (HV).  This is followed by an assault on the indissolubility of marriage and a call for democracy in the Church.  The shoddy scholarship is shot through with prejudice.

The first two chapters set the stage for the attack on HV.  The author assigns himself a supra-magisterial position from which he passes judgment on popes and councils while showing a slavish respect for dissenting theologians.  He sees in infallibility and infallible definitions an obstacle to ecumenism.  He quotes Msgr. Lambruschini, who released HV to the world, to support the view that the encyclical is not an infallible statement.   He rejects Msgr. Lambruschini when the latter says one cannot have a probable opinion against the encyclical.

Kaufman’s argument is ably answered by Bishop Austin Vaughan:  “We are in a period when many writers regard any teaching that is not infallibly defined as neither certain nor binding.   This view is not just opposed to the words of the Second Vatican Council (Lumen Gentium n. 25) but to the very reason why Christ put a magisterium in the Church in the first place”  (Christian Faith in a Neo-pagan Society, Northeast Books, 1981, p.7).

The main assault on HV comes in Chapters 3 to 6.  The author accepts Greeley’s statistical argument as though sin were a justification for the abolition of the commandments.   He is incensed that Pope Paul  VI rejected the majority opinion of the Birth Control Commission.  John Cardinal Heenan, Pro-President of the Commission, wrote:  “No member of the Commission thought that we could resolve the problem by a majority vote – It was always understood that the decision must be by him alone (the Pope) as Christ’s Vicar” (Catholic Mind, Sept. 1968, p. 6).

Kaufman is in error charging that in HV the Pope ignored significant development in the teaching on marriage at Vatican II.  At Vatican II the Pope reserved to himself the decision on problems concerning contraception.  In his warped historical analysis the author forgets that “no Catholic writer before 1963 had asserted that the general prohibition of contraception was wrong” (Contraception by John T. Noonan, Jr., Harvard University Press, 1965, p. 512).

The final attack is on the grounds that the teaching of HV has not been “received” by many theologians, bishops’ conferences and people.   That is tragic but the nonreception is due largely to the theologians’ dissent.  It has been pointed out that when the faithful were taught the Church’s doctrine by all, without compromise, and were given high spiritual motivation, the great majority rejected contraception even in times of great economic hardship (cf. Allan C. Carlson,  “The Fertility Gap:  The Need for a Profamily Agenda,”  This World Review, Summer.  1989).

Chapters 6 and 7 are a vicious attack on family life by calling for the right to divorce and remarry.  Vatican II calls divorce a plague and tells us that the sacrament of marriage ought never to be profaned by adultery or divorce (Gaudium et Spes, par. 49).  It is beyond doubt that the Church has taught the intrinsic indissolubility of marriage with the firmness and unanimity required for the exercise of the infallibility of the ordinary magisterium (cf. Catholic Sexual Ethics, Lawler, Boyle and May, Our Sunday Visitor, 1985, p. 116).

Chapter 8 calls for democracy in the Church through the election of bishops.  We are given as a foundation for this proposal a number of historical and theological errors.  Among these: “Before  the eleventh century the Church was a collegial group of local churches making up the universal Church.”  We are told that Vatican II taught that “infallibility of Pope and bishops has meaning only in the context of the fundamental infallibility of the Church as a whole.”  It is an article of faith that the Supreme Pontiff has universal, ordinary, supreme and complete jurisdiction over the whole Church (Vatian I; Denzinger, 1831).  It is the Pope’s prerogative to decide how bishops are appointed.

In the final chapter Kaufman indulges in an orgy of neo-Modernism and liberal Protestantism.  He embraces the heresy that sacred power and the mandate for exercising it come to the hierarchy not directly from Christ but from the people.

In the Kaufman paradigm the laity should have a decisive, not merely consultative voice in the Church.  Intercommunion should be allowed.  Anglican and Lutheran orders should be recognized.  In regard to other denominations, “a strong case exists for the real presence of Christ in Eucharistic celebrations.”  In a united Church of the future, “ democracy and pluralism will be essential.”  The only voice that will be trusted, he says, will relish a diversity of “probable opinions.”  So much for Christ’s coming “to bear witness to the truth”  (John 18:37).

The author of this book is deeply confused.  He has no love for the Church, his Mother and Teacher.  He talks of the “official Church,”  “Roman Church,” institutional Church,” “curial Church,” as though there were more than one Church of Christ.  He advocates the kind of contradictory pluralism condemned by Pope Paul VI (Exhortation on Reconciliation, Dec. 8, 1974).  “Respect for the Magisterium is a constitutive element of theological method” (Paul VI to French bishops, June 20, 1977).  Scholars need the guidance of the magisterium as much as anyone else.

When it comes to Natural Family Planning (NFP) Kaufman is more than confused – he is totally ignorant.  Virtually every study he cites or refers to is suspect.  He betrays no understanding of the old pioneer, Model T Rhythm (which was as effective as the condom and diaphragm of that time) and the latest Ovulation and Symptothermal Methods).  When properly taught to and practiced by a motivated couple, these are as effective as any means of birth control short of sterilization – yes, more effective than the abortifacient pill.  Kaufman’s ignorance about the menstrual cycle and NFP is compounded when he quotes a male practitioner complaining about three weeks of abstinence; the average is 8 – 9 days!  (p. 39)

Similarly, Kaufman is totally unaware of the bad psychic and physical effects of contraception and the abortifacient character of the Pill and IUD.  He also completely ignores the now admitted fierce failure rates of contraception.  Ten years ago the British Medical Journal maintained that more women die of all means of birth control than any one single disease (15 Sept. 1979; cf. also Journal of the American Medical Association, No. 247:20 28 May 1982).  Likewise is he totally unaware that widespread contraception has led to massive sterilization and abortion in every country, to say nothing of non-replacement birthrates, the spread of V.D., the increase of divorce, and other evils.

Again, Kaufman buys the overpopulation myth (p. 29).  He needs to read the books of Drs. Julian Simon and Jacqueline Kasun.  Incredibly, Kaufman mentions the maverick Mill Hill Fr. Arthur McCormick as “ an important authority on demographic questions.”

The shortage of priests he attributes “largely” to the Church’s maintaining “the ecclesiastical discipline of celibacy”; he implies ordaining women might be the solution.  Not surprisingly, he embraces the discredited seamless garment theory.

St. Thomas Aquinas, talking about the philosophers of antiquity, said that even the humble old lady who accepts the teaching of the Magisterium is far more enlightened by God than were the pre-Christian men of genius (cf. commentary on the Apostles’ Creed, art.1).  With equal certainty it can be said that the humbles Catholic of our times, accepting the teaching of the Church, is more enlightened on the Truth of God and the Way to him than are all the sad dissenters.

Msgr. Vincent Foy

Published in Homiletic and Pastoral Review, February 1991.  In shorter form, this book review was reprinted in the Catholic Register, February 22, 1992.