Tag: Encyclical Humanae Vitae

The Encyclical Humanae Vitae: Charter of Life and Love. Reflections on the Tenth Anniversary

Preface

This was written in Rome in 1978. It elicited thanks from the Substitute Secretary of State, Archbishop, later Cardinal, Giuseppe Caprio, who called me to his office to express appreciation. It was printed in the July-August, 1978, issue of the Keys of Peter, an English bimonthly, under the editorship of Ronald King. It also appeared in translation in the German priests’ review Regnum in October 1978. On the fifteenth anniversary of Humanae Vitae it was published again in the Keys of Peter. In reprint form it was widely circulated by Human Life International (Reprint 12) and by the St. Joseph’s Workers for Life and Family.

The Encyclical Humanae Vitae:  Charter of Life and Love.  Reflections on the Tenth Anniversary

By Msgr. Vincent N. Foy

The most embattled document in Church history is perhaps the encyclical Humanae Vitae, signed on the feast of St. James the Apostle, July 25th, 1968, by Pope Paul VI. Ten years later it remains under constant attack by pen and tongue and conduct.

It was an answer to new questions (cf. par. 3). Unfortunately, by some it was regarded as only so much “in-put” into the solution of great problems and not the definitive answer it was intended to be. Others had already given their own answers to their own questions and what is worse, had claimed these answers to be definitive. When the Pope spoke they were neither prepared to listen nor to humble themselves before the Church. Others attempted to nullify by human reason what was declared with the authority of Christ.

The teaching of the encyclical is normative and binding. Bishops and priests are bound to uphold it. It is an exercise of the supreme magisterium to which is owed religious assent of mind and will. (cf. Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Vatican II, par. 25.). Above all it is a proclamation of divine love and gives to those who accept it the certitude and peace which come from accepting God’s will

Humanae Vitae: A Testimonial to God’s Love

All through the encyclical, like a golden thread, there is reference to the accomplishment of God’s law and will through proper respect for human life and proper regard for its transmission. Married couples, in the most serious duty of transmitting human life, are the free and responsible collaborators of God the Creator (cf. par.1). The encyclical is an exercise of the magisterial competency coming from Christ himself (par.4). The natural law, which it rightly interprets, is an expression of the will of God (ibid.). The encyclical provides its answers to the grave questions raised, by virtue of the mandate of Christ (cf. par.6). Conjugal love reveals its true nature and nobility when considered in its supreme origin, God, who is love (cf. par.8). For baptized persons the marriage union is a symbol of the union and therefore the love between Christ and His Church (ibid.). Responsible parenthood implies that husband and wife recognize fully their own duties toward God (cf. par.10). They must conform their activity to the creative intention of God (ibid.).

The above are only some of the earlier references by which the pope identifies the teaching of the encyclical by text and context with the law and love of God. Not a single page of the encyclical omits to forge more strongly this linkage. It is a testimonial to God’s love in what it commands and what it forbids. This is not only for married persons but also for those who shepherd them and teach them and guide them and relate to them.

Humanae Vitae: Testimonial to the Church’s Love

The encyclical is another manifestation of the love of the Church for her children. It would be quite incredible if the living voice of God were not to speak out clearly in what is among the most important of moral issues: that of human life and its transmission. We deal here with matters affecting countless millions of lives either in fact or in potency, in matters by which God has allowed free will to touch eternal destinies. They are matters over which God jealously fixed His laws and lovingly gave their interpretation to His Church so that she could speak in His name: “The Lord puts to death and gives life” (1 Samuel, II, 6).

It is of prime importance to realize that the teaching of Humanae Vitae is not that of a man; it is not an informal statement of a Pope. It is not “Pope Paul’s encyclical” except in a restricted historical context. It is the teaching of the Church. The pope has the right to speak in the name of the Church as its Head and Vicar of Christ by his own authority (cf. Vatican II, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, par. 22). The encyclical makes clear that it enshrines the Church’s teaching. So we note, for example: “The Church … teaches … that each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life” (par. 11).

Some have tried to isolate the doctrine of the encyclical in time and describe it as a new tyranny. In fact it is upheld by a thousand pillars. At the annual colloquium last November of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy in Arlington, Virginia, Bishop Austin Vaughan remarked that when professor John Noonan wrote his book in 1966 on the history of the teaching of theologians and the Church on contraception, he expected that he might trace this teaching to the mid eighteenth century. He found the doctrine against artificial contraception taught by Clement of Alexandria at the end of the second or the beginning of the third century. The encyclical itself rightly refers to the “constant teaching of the Church” (par. 10).

The Church has not left us to the mercy of merely human disciplines or unaided reason. Neither demographers nor agronomers nor biologists nor philosophers can give certain answers to questions outside their fields. It is right and proper for the Church to weigh their arguments but never right to allow them to step outside the circles of their own competencies. Nor can unguided reason reach to the order of revelation. So Scripture warns us: “On your own intelligence rely not … Be not wise in your own eyes” (Proverbs III, 5, 7). The questions treated in the encyclical required from the Church a teaching “founded on the natural law, illuminated and enriched by divine revelation” (par. 4).

Nor has the Church left us at the mercy of theological opinion. Essential and noble as the science of theology is, theological opinion can be a great mixture of good and bad, of true and false, of wise and foolish things from which only the Church by her right of discernment can pick out what is good and true. After the Church has spoken definitively, all contrary theological opinions become non-normative. Unfortunately some theologians still hold as normative theories already authoritatively condemned: wrong concepts of the natural law, the concept that the ban on artificial birth control is historically conditioned, wrong notions of the “principle of totality,” a confusion of the terms abnormal and pathological, false doctrine in the area of private morality vs. public policy. Others refer to “accepted principles of moral theology” which are not acceptable.

The Church did not leave us to the mercy of our own uninformed or unformed consciences. The late Rev. David Knowles, writing from a vast knowledge of history and referring to the case of King Henry VIII and St Thomas More, remarked: “The word conscience has a terrible ambiguity, which cannot be by-passed by a kind of blind assumption that we are all acting with clear minds and pure motives” (“The Encyclical Without Ambiguity,” The Tablet, Oct. 5, 1968). In the encyclical the Church warns married people that “they must conform their activity to the creative intention of God, expressed in the very nature of marriage and of its acts, and manifested by the constant teaching of the Church” (par.10). One of the greatest theologians of our time wrote: “It is nonsense for a Catholic to set up in opposition to the authority of the Encyclical the authority of his own personal conscience” (“The Light of the Encyclical” by Cardinal C. Journet, L’Osservatore Romano, Oct. 10, 1968, p.10). It is nonsense, but nonsense still repeated far and wide; it is the nonsensical reply of depravity to love.

Humane Vitae: Guardian of Married Life and Love

The church reaffirms in Humanae Vitae that marriage is “the wise institution of the Creator to realize in mankind His design of love” (par. 8). She discerns clearly the threat to marriage and married love in illicit contraception, direct sterilization and abortion. She sees the grave spin-off effects of these practices in the areas of human sexuality, civil legislation and society in general.

The teaching of the encyclical is a necessary support of the three essential goods of marriage: fidelity, permanence, and openness to new human life. These goods are under attack when illicit contraception is practiced. The more easily and more certainly effective are the illicit means, the stronger are the temptations to use them. So the Church says, regarding the natural law: “man … must not be offered some easy means of eluding its observance” (par. 17). When the barriers are down, fidelity is endangered, infidelity often leads to separation and divorce and those who give free rein to their lusts recoil before the responsibilities of parenthood. The encyclical warns that all methods of contraception lead to loss of respect for woman, so that she is looked upon as “a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as the respected and beloved companion” (par. 17).

It is a truism that no law can stand without sanctions (Nulla sanctio, nulla lex). The Church in her role as guardian life and love reaffirms that the gravest of all sanctions are attached to practices condemned in the encyclical: the consequences of grave sin.

Another point is often forgotten and its importance cannot be over-emphasized. This is a threat to the validity of marriage posed by the contraceptive mentality. Very few theorists or immured theologians, however well meaning, see the concrete results of their speculations mirrored in the lives of men, women and children. The more the teaching of Humanae Vitae is rejected, the greater the number of invalid or illicit marriages with all the resulting tears, unhappiness and shattered lives. More and more young people, without having even read the encyclical or the Church’s teaching, have been victimized. They come now in ever increasing numbers, boldly asserting, on the basis of a newspaper article, or panel discussion, or a sermon, that they have the right over their own bodies and will decide when and whether to have children and what means they are going to use. They do not know or understand or accept what the Church affirms: “One must necessarily recognize insurmountable limits to the possibility of man’s domination over his own body and its functions’ (par. 17). More and more do not transfer the essential rights of marriage, and so their marriages are invalid from the beginning. This is compounded if due care is not taken in the prenuptial investigation or preparation course.

So couples often walk from the altar and out of the church and to their own ruin. It is further compounded when the intention of one party is good and the other bad or invalidating, and one party becomes the victim of the other.

It is no coincidence that books, articles and talks which attack the doctrine of Humanae Vitae nearly always promote a human sexuality contrary to God’s law. Once sex is completely divorced from the transmission of life by deliberate act, a whole brood of moral monsters is hatched, the offspring of unbridled erotic love. The contraceptive mentality has led and leads to pre-marital sex and extra-marital sex. When sex is so radically debased, the moral order gives way. Self-indulgence without restraint becomes an end in itself. “Free love,” “swinging,” orgies, homosexuality, lesbianism, bestiality and every abomination are justified. Paradoxically, illegitimate births increase because illegitimacy becomes “respectable,” while at the same time what was called the great threat of over-population becomes the threat of genocide and even economies are unbalanced.

No less an evil resulting from the defiance of divine and natural law is the reflection of the defiance in civil legislation. “Who could blame a government for applying to the solution of the problems of the community those means acknowledged to be licit for married couples in the solution of a family problem?” (par. 17.) To many the morality of civil legislation is equated with a proper moral code. Often spiritual leaders discover this too late. Often too, legislation takes a leap when the spiritual leaders, for the sake of civil liberties, thought they were acquiescing only to a step.

In the final analysis, moral corruption in society can be traced back to moral corruption in its fundamental cell, the family. Where human life is not respected in its beginnings, neither will it be respected in its course or in its end. And so there is verified the solid basis of the Church’s teaching: “In defending conjugal morals in their integral wholeness, the Church knows that she contributes towards the establishment of a truly human civilization” (par. 18).

Humanae Vitae: A Charter of Pastoral Love

The doctrine of Humanae Vitae gives guidance to more than husbands and wives. Willy-nilly all are caught up in the consequences of right doctrine on human life. So in the pastoral section the Church as Teacher and Mother guides those who must guide others. There are specific instructions for public authorities (par. 23), men of science (par. 24), doctors and medical personnel (par. 27), priests (par.28) and Bishops (par. 30). While the tone of the pastoral section is full of understanding and compassion, it is uncompromising in doctrine. The teaching of the Church is to be expounded without ambiguity (par. 28). God’s grace is always sufficient. All the means of grace are to be used.

Pastoral concern does not and never did justify doctrinal accommodations to suit individual preferences. That would effectively be not an act of charity but of grave moral injury. It would be a denial of the graces of matrimony, prayer, Penance and the Eucharist. “And if sin should still keep its hold over them, let them not be discouraged, but rather have recourse with humble perseverance to the mercy of God, which is poured forth in the sacrament of Penance” (par. 25). The sacrament of Penance is the specific and supreme remedy for those who have fallen. Immediately after the encyclical was promulgated, some held that a new doctrine of Penance was taught in that an effective purpose of amendment was not required. It would be sufficient if the persons agreed to reconsider their conduct in “the light of the encyclical.” This attack on the doctrine of the Council of Trent is more absurd than quoting one General Council against another, and more insidious. It is also a betrayal of pastoral love. One can never protect the divine law surrounding life and love if one holds that there are two different doctrines: one to be taught and one to be lived. That is the double-talk which reduces the teaching on human life to an ideal which is equated with a counsel.

Humanae Vitae Under Attack

Despite the beauty and truth and binding force of the doctrine of Humanae Vitae, that teaching has been distorted and often nullified. In the U.S. a recent presentation of statistics by Dr. Westoff, Director of the Office of Population Research at Princeton University, shows how Catholics are ignoring the teaching of Humanae Vitae. Dr. Westoff reported that by 1975, ninety percent of the nation’s Catholic women who were married less than five years were using contraceptive methods not approved by the Church. In 1955, eighty percent conformed to prohibition of any contraceptive method other than the rhythm method. His conclusion was that in this regard “there is very little remaining to differentiate American Catholics from those of other religious persuasions” (cf. International Herald Tribune, April 17 , 1978). One might contest the statistics, but hardly the general conclusion. The U.S. is far from unique.

What are the causes? Certainly constant hammering against the Catholic position in the public media has been a factor. But Catholics have withstood such attacks before. Certainly there has been a general decay in moral behavior. Catholics have withstood such encompassing decay before.

It is incontestable that there has been a betrayal from within, and from high places as well as low. Bishops were asked to keep silent on the question of the Church’s impending declaration. This silence did not imply they were to be silent in the face of attacks on the constant teaching of the Church. The great majority respected this caution, but some few did not and this caused widespread confusion. Even after the caution of 1966 (“The thought and the norms of the Church have not changed”), a few Bishops issued confidential confessional directives not to be published or preached, which were not in accord with the Church’s teaching. Inevitably, some such directives were published. The gist often was: “Catholics must be reassured that decisions made in good conscience should not make them fearful or prevent them from receiving the sacraments.” After the encyclical, these same few Bishops did not retract. This unwarranted subjectivism spread like wildfire.

Just before the official release of the encyclical, the bishops were asked through Cardinal Cicognani, Secretary of State, to stand firm with the Pope in his presentation of the Church’s teaching, and “to explain and justify the reasons for it.” This explains a large number of statements of national hierarchies. Unfortunately and tragically, many of these statements–some prepared with incredible haste-communicated dissent and confusion rather than full assent.

Immediately after the encyclical many theologians decried its teaching and maintained the rights of individuals to dissent. Many Bishops of these theologians were silent.

In some places Seminary professors openly dissented and while some were removed or disciplined, others were not; and so the infection of dissent was spread to a new generation of priests. Some professors asked to leave one Seminary were taken into another.

Confessors and preachers began to contradict one another in pulpit and confessional. As this became known and confusion spread, fewer and fewer Catholics confessed the sins of artificial contraception or direct sterilization or the crime of abortion with its attendant excommunication, while the evils themselves multiplied.

Ethical boards in some Catholic hospitals, often with the knowledge or consent of Bishops, permitted direct sterilizations. Catholic surgeons were assured in some places that they could proceed with direct sterilizations when the majority on a board voted for it. Chaplains have been assured by some Bishops that if they cast their vote against sterilization they had done their duty, even when the majority were habitually in favor.

Legislators even in Catholic countries, or countries with large Catholic populations, were given advice by Bishops’ Committees and theologians contrary to the pastoral section of Humanae Vitae. That is a very sorry story indeed. In many cases the things that are God’s were given into the hands of a pagan Caesar when the divine law could have been easily upheld.

High school texts, codes of hospital ethics, pre-marital instruction texts and other books were given the “Imprimatur” when they attacked, distorted or compromised the teaching of the encyclical.

There have been, sad to say, even insinuations that the Holy Father was unsure of himself and in this sense was guilty of the Ultimate Dissent: dissent from himself. These insinuations have been circulated in the most contemptible way, despite his repeated affirmation of the doctrine of the encyclical and his own declaration to the world: “After imploring the light of the Holy Spirit, we placed our conscience at the free and full disposal of the voice of truth … until we had no doubt about our duty to give our decision in terms expressed in the present encyclical” (Pope Paul VI, address “We Had No Doubt about Our Decision,” July 31, 1968).

The above is only a part of the way in which the teaching of the encyclical and therefore of the Church was subverted. All of the above points can be documented. They are not mentioned to scandalize, but to help provide necessary insights into the remedies needed to defend the Church’s great charter of human life and love.

Humanae Vitae: How Can Its Teaching Be Upheld?

We come to the key question, a question of incalculable importance for the Church, for the people of God, for all mankind: How can the teaching of Humanae Vitae be upheld? Everyone can do something. Everyone should do something. The suggestions given here are only indicators and what applies to one may not apply to another. The basic predisposition to any positive action is, of course, full assent of mind and will to the teaching of the Church in its interpretation of the divine law and will.

1. All the spiritual means should be given pre-eminence. The encyclical outlines these first for married couples, then for others.

2. Right pre-marital instructions are of the greatest importance. Many young people are the victims of slogan morality. They sometimes parrot phrases: “We have the right over our own bodies”; “We have the right to follow our own consciences”; “We have the right to decide the means best for us to determine when and if we are to have a family.” Very often they have no insight into how the Church’s teaching is one of God’s love for them and the key to the stability and happines of their own marriage.

3. For those who are teaching or preaching or writing, study is important. Tertullian tells us that any kind of heresy must be understood in terms of its origin. This is true of all false teaching. Study will reinforce one’s faith in the Church as Mother and Teacher.

4. Encouragement should be continually given to all who uphold the Church’s teaching in their lives, their writing, in their work and by their sacrificial efforts.

5. Some will be able to make use of the communications media in the struggle for human.

6. Some can take an active part in pro life -life groups which are faithful to the Church’s teaching. Some so-called pro-life groups or “Peace and Development” groups live the lie to their titles and should not be supported.

7. Special groups: physicians, psychologists, nurses, hospital administrators, marriage counsellors, social workers and others should make certain that their own ethical standards are in conformity with the Church’s teaching and not some evasion of it.

8. The laity have a basic right to expect that the Church’s teaching be upheld by their ‘Bishops and priests. All ought to pray for their Bishops and priests and make respectful presentations to them if there are failures to uphold the totality of the Church’s teaching.

9. Seminarians, students in Catholic colleges and schools have the right to expect that the Church’s teaching on issues touching human life be upheld without dilution. They have a right to expect that textbooks do the same.

Concluding Thoughts

In the final analysis, the questions raised and answered by Humanae Vitae are those of the roles of conscience and authority. In this matter, where millions of lives and souls are at stake the Catholic must opt for authority. He accepts the Church as his sure guide in matters of faith and morals. He sees in the Pope him who holds the keys of Peter. It is true that the last resort in dealing with a person aff1icted with an invincibly erroneous conscience is the advice: “You must act logically in accordance with your error.” But the advice must also be given: “You cannot logically try to compel others to act in accordance with your error: not your spouse, not your confessor, not your teacher, not your doctor, not your Bishop, not your Church, not the Holy Father who stands in the place of Christ.”

We need in this age, at this time of the tenth anniversary of Humanae Vitae, a greater confidence in the God-given role of the Church. Perhaps it would help to reflect on the words of Cardinal Newman:

Trust the Church of God implicitly even when your natural judgement would take a different course from hers and would induce you to question her prudence or correctness. Recollect what a hard task she has; how she is sure to be criticized and spoken against, whatever she does; recollect how much she needs your loyal and tender devotion; recollect, too, how long is the experience gained in 1900 years; and what a right she has to claim your assent to principles which have had so extended and triumphant a trial. Thank her that she has kept the faith safe for so many generations and do your part in helping her to transmit it to generations after you.

Also see:  Catholics Against Contraception

Is There a Positive Side to the Winnipeg Statement? September 21, 2008

Is There a Positive Side to the Winnipeg Statement?

By Msgr. Vincent Foy

A recent unpublished article is entitled “A Positive Look at the Winnipeg Statement.”  The reference is to the Canadian Catholic Bishops’ commentary on the encyclical Humanae Vitae, given at Winnipeg on Friday, September 27, 1968.

The “Positive Look” is based on a claim by the late Cardinal Carter that the Winnipeg Statement was nothing more than a pastoral response to the encyclical.  Cardinal Carter said “… there was no question of dissent from our beloved Paul VI… we were about our pastoral business and were not trying to write a theological dissent” (“The Whole Truth About the Winnipeg Statement of 1968”, pamphlet, 1997).

The present notes demonstrate, I believe, the opposite was the purpose of the Winnipeg Statement.  This conclusion is warranted by a look at the prior context of the Statement, the Winnipeg meeting itself and the subsequent events.  The Winnipeg statement had no positive side.  It was a true tragedy.

Signs of Dissent Before the Winnipeg Meeting

1.  Silence

Pope Pius XII had condemned the contraceptive use of the Pill on September 12, 1958.  Pope Paul VI reaffirmed the teaching of the Church in 1964 and 1966, calling it a time of study and not of doubt.  Nevertheless, in widespread attacks on that teaching there was silence on the part of the CCCB and individual bishops.

There was silence when a book called “Contraception and Holiness”, published in 1964, called for a change in the Church’s teaching.  Three of the authors were professors at Toronto’s St. Michael’s College.

There was silence when several speakers at the 1967 Toronto Conference on the Theology of Renewal attacked the Church’s teaching against contraception.

There was silence when Gregory Baum, professor at St. Michael’s College, told Catholics in talks, interviews and tapes that Catholics could use contraception because the Church was in a state of doubt.

There was silence when pressure groups such as the Western Conference of Priests, Catholic Physicians Guild of Manitoba, the Canadian Institute of Theology and fifty-eight “intellectuals” of St. Francis Xavier University called for “freedom of conscience”.

Many Catholics took silence for dissent and began using contraceptive pills and devices, most of them abortifacient.

2.  Submission to the Civil Government

On September 9, 1966, the CCCB addressed a document to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health and Welfare: On Change in the Law of Contraception.  The Bishops said they would not oppose the sale of contraceptives.  They said “Indeed, we could easily envisage an actual co-operation and even leadership on the part of lay Catholics to change a law which under present conditions they might well judge to be harmful to public order and the common good.”

The CCCB did not affirm that the law against contraception was a divine natural law binding all.

3.  False Confessional Norms

Prior to Humanae Vitae a number of bishops gave erroneous confessional norms.  Among these were Bishop Carter of Sault Ste. Marie, Archbishop Pocock of Toronto and Archbishop Plourde of Ottawa.  Typical was the instruction to confessors of Bishops G. E. Carter of London who said that since there was doubt about the Pope’s decision, confessors should absolve those who contracepted in good faith.

Such norms were in dissent from the Church’s teaching.  Paul VI warned in 1964 and 1966 that there must be no deviation from the Church’s teaching.  He said it was a time of study and not of doubt.

4.  Periti or Consultors

The Periti or so-called experts chosen to advise the bishops at Winnipeg were dissenters from the Church’s teaching.  These were Father Edward Sheridan, S.J., Fr. Andre Naud and Fr. Charles St. Ange.  Not one head of the Canadian matrimonial tribunals was invited.  They had the most experience relative to the evils of contraception.

 5. The Reaction of Canadian Bishops to Humanae Vitae

Many bishops reacted negatively to Humanae Vitae, not with the joyful docility requested by the Holy Father.

Late in July 1968, at the chalet of Archbishop Plourde, just north of Ottawa, a meeting took place of the Executive of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB). Present were Bishop Alexander Carter of London, President of the CCCB, his brother Bishop G. Emmett Carter of London, Archbishop Joseph-Aurele Plourde of Ottawa, Archbishop Philip Pocock of Toronto, and Bishop Coderre of Saint-Jean Longueuil. While there, they were visited by Archbishop Emmanuele Clarizio, Apostolic Delegate to Canada, who presented them with copies of the new encyclical Humanae Vitae, signed by Pope Paul VI on July 25, 1968 and addressed “to all men of good will.”

Cardinal Carter, then Bishop of London, describes the reaction of the bishops: “We promptly dropped everything else we were doing and pored over the encyclical.  It was with a certain sense of dismay that we read vital passages n it.  He (the Pope) had clearly taken a position that was contrary to the majority position of his own Commission.  We felt that this was going to be a major problem.”

6.  Archbishop Plourde of Ottawa

In August of 1968, Archbishop Plourde of Ottawa issued a pastoral letter on Humanae Vitae.  He said that individuals have the right to reach a judgement different from that of the Holy Father.

7.  The Mandate of the Bishops

The Canadian bishops had a triple mandate at Winnipeg.

As individuals they had the personal mandate shared by all Catholics of giving internal and external assent to the doctrine of Humanae Vitae.

As bishops they had an obligation to follow the pastoral norms given specifically to them (n. 30 Humanae Vitae).

As a national hierarchy, the Canadian bishops had a mandate to remain faithful to and firm with the Pope.  On July 19, 1968, Cardinal Cicognani, the Holy See’s Secretary of State, sent a letter to all the world’s bishops appealing for unity.  Only recently has the full text of this letter been circulated. A key paragraph is this:

“It is necessary that both in the confessional and in the pulpit, in the press and by other means of communication, every necessary pastoral effort be made that no ambiguity exists among the faithful or in public opinion concerning the Church’s position in this serious matter.”

Cardinal Cicognani said that the Pope called for joyful docility by all in their reception of the teaching of their Holy Mother the Church.

The Winnipeg Meeting, September 1968

We have seen some of the evidence which pre-disposed a number of Canadian bishops to seek a loophole by which the encyclical Humanae Vitae would be nullified.  Now we look at the meeting by which they undermined the encyclical via the mask of a so-called pastoral interpretation and the escape-hatch of the subjective conscience.

1.  Rejection of a Minority Statement

Early in the meeting a motion was passed excluding a minority report or Statement.  The reason given was that the matter to be discussed was pastoral, not doctrinal.  In fact, the opposite was true; moral doctrine of the gravest matter was to be discussed.

2.  Rejection of Orthodoxy

The week before the Winnipeg meeting I met Fr. Sheridan, S.J., one of the consultors.  He told me that he had just read, in German, Karl Rahner’s theory on the right to dissent from Humanae Vitae and was going to translate it and bring it to Winnipeg.  It happened that the same day I had received the American Catholic Register, which gave Karl Rahner’s opinion in English.  I contacted Bishop Ryan of Hamilton to tell him the news.  He asked me to write a short refutation of Karl Rahner’s opinion and send a copy for each bishop to Fr. George, S.J., Secretary to the English-speaking bishops.  This I did.

Bishop Allen later told me that my two-page article was not distributed by order of Archbishop Pocock.  The latter wrote me from Winnipeg saying that he had read my comments and that I need have no fear for the orthodoxy of the Canadian bishops.

3.  A Welcome to Dissenters

Father Ore McManus of the Western Canada Conference of Priests came to Winnipeg armed with a letter from Fr. Bernard Lonergan, S.J., which defended dissent.  Bernard Daly, Director of the CCCB’s English section of the Family Life Bureau, came with a petition from fifteen Offices of the CCCB calling for “freedom of conscience”.  Both were asked to remain and were brought into the consultation process and even had a share in the writing of the Statement.

4.  Refusal to Endorse Humanae Vitae

Three bodies were at work during the Winnipeg meeting: the Theological Commission of Bishops, the Consultors or “Periti” and the main body of bishops.  The theological Commission voted 8 to 5 to include in the Statement unity with the encyclical on the question of the regulation of birth.  The consultors were greatly agitated over this wording and with the help of Remi di Roo were able to obtain approval by the vote of a wording which would avoid specific approval of the key teaching of Humanae Vitae.  So the vague wording of paragraph 2 of the Winnipeg Statement is the root of which the erroneous teaching in paragraph 26 is the fruit.

5.  Rejection of the law against contraception as a moral absolute

Paragraph 3 of the Winnipeg Statement says there is nothing in the encyclical at variance with the Canadian bishops’ submissions to the civil authorization on contraception, divorce and abortion. This is not true.  In this submission of September 9, 1966, the Bishops saw nothing wrong with a proposed law permitting the sale of contraceptives.  In fact, they even envisaged leadership and cooperation of Catholics in changing a law which “under present conditions they might well judge to be harmful to public order and the common good.”

So the Canadian bishops betrayed the Church’s teaching which sees contraception as a moral absolute, binding all.

Their Statement on divorce was similarly flawed.

6.  Rejection of the Finality of Humanae Vitae

The Statement reads as though the Church was still searching for answers the Pope and the Church had already given (Winnipeg Statement, para., 3,4,6,7,13,18,34). In paragraph 34 we see reflected Father Charles Curran’s “Dissent in and for the Church.”  The Bishops say:  “If … we must as pilgrims do, falter in the way, or differ as to the way, no one should conclude that our common faith is lost or our loving purpose blunted.”

7.  Paragraph 26

This paragraph of the Winnipeg Statement contains the infamous words that under some circumstances parties may “be safely assured that, whoever chooses that course which seems right to him does so in good conscience.”

The words “that course which seems right to him”, open up a world of subjectivism.  What if this means using an abortifacient pill or sterilization?  What if the course which seems right to him does not seem right to her?  Supposing his counselor or confessor differs from her counselor or confessor?

Paragraph 26 embraces the error of proportionalism.  It allows spouses to balance the right to life with other goods such as the education of children and the health of the mother.  The encyclical Humanae Vitae forbids such a balancing of goods (n. 14).  Pope John Paul II calls such a balancing of goods a very serious error (Address of March 1, 1984).

Paragraph 26 calls the teaching of the Church against contraception “Directives”.  The teaching is not “Directives” but divine natural law.

A good analysis of the paragraph is given by John F. Kippley, founder of the Couple to Couple League:  “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 behaviour applies to all the rest” (John F. Kippley, Sex and the Marriage Covenant, Cincinnati Ohio: The Couple to Couple League, 1991, p. 145).

8.  Conclusion of the Statement

Instead of rejoicing in our heritage of the Truth, and receiving the encyclical with “joyful docility” as requested by the Holy Father, the Canadian bishops end their commentary by quoting Cardinal Newman’s “Lead kindly Light Amongst the Encircling Gloom.”  The Statement was to bring that encircling gloom.

The Post Winnipeg Events and Consequences

1.  The refusal of Full Assent to the Encyclical

Of prime importance is the admission of Bishop Alexander Carter. He said “It was something of an identity crisis.  For the first time 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”  (America magazine, Oct. 19, 1968, p. 349).  Please note the words “For the first time”, “simple Amen” and the reference to the doctrine of the encyclical.  The bishops claimed the right to pass judgement on the teaching of the Pope and Church.

2.  A Second Letter from Archbishop Pocock

After the Winnipeg meeting, but before he left Winnipeg, Archbishop Pocock of Toronto wrote me a second letter. He said that the Canadian bishops had spoken with near unanimity, that he expected me to accept their decision and to absolve those who contracepted in good faith.

3.  What the Winnipeg Statement Communicated

As important as what the Winnipeg Statement said is what is communicated.  It communicated dissent, ambivalence and compromise.  Numerous examples of this could be given.  A fair assessment was given in an editorial by Dale Francis in the Twin Circle newspaper for October 20, 1968:  “The practical consequence has been that it has been interpreted as virtually negating the Pope’s proscription of contraception.”

Countless couples have claimed that the Winnipeg Statement gave them permission to contracept.

4.  Thanks for a Commentary Criticizing the Winnipeg Statement

At the request of Cardinal O’Boyle of Washington, in whose Archdiocese the American bishops were to gather to discuss the encyclical Humanae Vitae, I wrote a commentary on the Winnipeg Statement. It was highly critical of the Canadian Statement.  I also sent a copy to the Holy See. I received a letter of thanks from Cardinal Cicognani, Secretary of State.  He conveyed thanks and a blessing form the Holy Father, as well as his own thanks.

The letter was sent open to Archbishop Clarizio, the Apostolic Delegate with instructions that it be sent open to my Archbishop who was to present it open to me.  The Archbishop gave me the letter with the words “I have been asked to give this to you.”  I read the letter in his presence and thanked him.  He made no comment.

5.  The Refusal by L’Osservatore Romano to print the Winnipeg Statement

Although the official Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano printed several Statements of National Hierarchies on the encyclical Humanae Vitae, it refused to print the Canadian Statement.  When asked by the president of the CCCB why it was not printed, the editor of the English-speaking edition replied that is was not printed because it was a disgrace.

6. Education was Infected

Two of the seven priests dismissed from St. John Vianney Seminary in Buffalo for dissent form Humanae Vitae were welcomed into St. Augustine’s Seminary in Toronto.  Dissent spread through seminaries e.g. St. Peter’s in London, Ontario.  Texts like “Married in the Lord” by Father Michael Prieur, “Christ Among Us” by Wilhelm, marriage preparation courses, family life programs, and CCCB kits all carried the life-destroying Winnipeg message.

7.  Approval by Bishop Carter of London of the text “Married in the Lord”

In 1966, I wrote to Bishop Gerald Emmett Carter of London about errors in the text “Married in the Lord” by Father Michael Prieur, professor of moral theology at St. Peter’s Seminary.  Fr. Prieur taught that the teaching of Humanae Vitae could be changed; though three Popes said it could not.  He said it was not always necessary to confess the practice of contraception.  He even taught that couples having intercourse before marriage should practice periods of abstinence.

Bishop Carter defended Fr. Prieur.  He wrote to me that he had full confidence in Father Prieur, that he had not only given the text his “Imprimatur” but had helped Father Prieur “over the rough spots”.

8.     Sterilization in Catholic Hospitals

In 1970 the Medico-Moral Guide approved by the Canadian Bishops for use in Catholic hospitals contained a prohibition of sterilization as a means of birth control (Article 18).  But there is an addendum.  It reads “Reference should be made to the Canadian Bishops documents on the pastoral application of this general direction.”  This addendum gave the green light to moral relativism in our hospitals under the cloak of “freedom of conscience” as taught by the Winnipeg Statement.  When I protested the sterilization in St. Michael’s Hospital of a parishioner, I was told by the Superior “The Archbishop says that what we are dong here is in accordance with the thinking of the Canadian Bishops.”

Conclusion

The article “A Positive Look at the Winnipeg Statement” is based on the claim by Cardinal Carter that the Statement was a mere pastoral response.  It has been shown that it was a pastoral response not in conformity with the teaching of Humane Vitae.  A right pastoral response is always in conformity with the truth.

On May 30, 1983, Pope John Paul addressed the participants in the first Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for the Family.  Among other things he discussed the need for pastoral action to be faithful to Humanae Vitae and Familiaris Consortio:

“It is absolutely necessary that the pastoral action of Christian communities be totally faithful to the teaching of the Encyclical Humane Vitae and to the Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio.  It would be a great error to set up pastoral requirements in opposition to doctrinal teachings since the very first service that the Church must perform for people is to tell them the truth of which she is neither the author nor the mother”  (L’Osservatore Romano, June 6, 1983).

We ought all work and pray for the recall of the tragic Winnipeg Statement.

Msgr. Vincent Foy

September 21, 2008

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.