Tag: Pope Paul VI

A response to Fr. Michael Prieur’s defence of the Winnipeg Statement

Scan_20140315 (2)The following article was published in Catholic Insight, 2005 with the preface written by the editor of Catholic Insight, Father Alphonse de Valk.

Preface

On June 3, 2005, I happened to have a telephone conversation with someone in Calgary.  At one point he mentioned having sent a letter to his bishop (Bishop Fred Henry) asking for the bishops of Canada to retract the September 1968 Winnipeg Statement dealing with the application of the encyclical Humanae vitae.  In response the bishop had sent him a two-page letter written by Fr. Michael Prieur defending the Winnipeg Statement.  On my request he sent me a copy of the document which I then forwarded to Msgr. Foy for comment, who was very surprised to see it.  Fr. Prieur is Professor of Moral and Sacramental Theology at St. Peter’s Seminary in London, Ontario.

The Latin (and Vatican) custom is to spell titles with only one capital:  Humanae vitae rather then the American custom of capitalizing all words in a title (Humanae Vitae).  The latter is used whenever Msgr. Foy quotes from another source.  —-Editor

A response to Fr. Michael Prieur’s defence of the Winnipeg Statement

By Monsignor Vincent Foy

It is distressing to learn that Fr. Michael Prieur, professor of moral theology at St. Peter’s Seminary, London, Ontario, is trying to defend the indefensible, i.e. the Winnipeg Statement of the Canadian Bishops on the encyclical Humanae vitae.

He attempts this in his “Comments on the Canadian Bishops’ Winnipeg Statement,” dated March 6, 2005. “He divides his comments into two sections, one on the “Winnipeg Statement” and the second on “Solid Teaching on Humanae Vitae (HV) and the Winnipeg Statement (WS).”

In this response I follow the sequence of his paragraphs.

Section A

1. Father Prieur says that the WS needs to be taken in context with two other statements of the Canadian Bishops: a second statement in April of 1969 and a third Statement on Conscience in 1973.

Here I give my comments on these subsequent statements in an article written for Challenge magazine in December 1989:

“In the wake of much criticism of the Winnipeg Statement a special ‘ad hoc’ Committee on the Family was set up by the CCCB. The purpose was ‘to follow up the 1968 Statement on Humanae Vitae.’ Its fruit was a report adopted by the General Assembly of the Canadian Bishops on April 18, 1969. It said in part:

‘Nothing could be gained and much could be lost by an attempt to rephrase what we have said at Winnipeg. We stand squarely behind our position but we feel it our duty to insist on a proper interpretation of that position.’

“In the midst of continuing criticism and confusion, the CCCB released a statement on The Formation of Conscience on December 12, 1973. It was a good statement on conscience in general. This seemed to be the opportune occasion to provide confessional guidelines for priests, promised at Winnipeg. These were not given. The statement listed some intrinsic evils: killing the innocent, adultery, theft. Nowhere is contraception mentioned, nor is Humanae vitae.

“Indirectly this was the basis for subsequent equivocation. In later guidelines one sees the statement on conscience quoted next to Par. 26 of the Winnipeg Statement. By this syncretic method contraception seems sometimes acceptable.” It is the context of HV that counts.

The truth is that the WS should rather be considered in the context of HV. Here its grave deficiencies become apparent. The Canadian Bishops were asked to confirm the encyclical and explain it. Instead they deliberately subverted it. Here we have the sad spectacle of bishops, sworn to fidelity to the Holy See, making a Statement undermining what was given to the universal Church with the authority of Christ (HV 6).

a) Father Prieur says that it must be noted that none of the Statements of the Canadian Bishops were ever subjected to any kind of correction by Rome. He presumes from this that they did not need correction. The fact is that a number of defective Episcopal Statements were not corrected by the Holy See directly. Indirectly they were criticized by the constant affirmation of HV by Pope Paul VI.

b) At the request of Cardinal O’Boyle of Washington, I wrote a critical analysis of the WS for the American Bishops. Cardinal Cicognani, Secretary of State, wrote to thank me and said that the Holy Father also thanked me. This letter was sent open to the Canadian Apostolic Delegate, to be forwarded to Archbishop Pocock, who had instructions to personally give it to me. This he did with no comment. Why would the Holy Father thank me for attacking the WS, if he approved of it?

c) It should be added that the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano refused to print the WS though it printed the Statements of other hierarchies. When a Canadian bishop complained personally to the editor of L’Osservatore Romano, Fr. Lambert Greenan, O.P., the latter replied that it had not been printed because it was a disgrace. The other Statements were cleared by the Secretariat of State. The WS was not. It is relevant to recall that when an article on Catholic Education by Archbishop Pocock was printed in L’Osservatore Romano Pocock complained that to appear in L’Osservatore Romano was “the kiss of death to a liberal.” He was then heavily under the influence of Gregory Baum, a main dissenter from HV.

Is the Winnipeg Statement faithful to HV?

2. Father Prieur tells us that although some groups are urging the bishops to change or withdraw the WS, this is not necessary because the WS is faithful both to the teachings of HV and teachings on conscience as understood by moral theology.

First, I thank God that we have groups and individuals working and praying for the recall of the WS and the teaching without compromise of HV. Among these are the Rosarium group under Tony and Diane Liuzzo and John and Laura Pacheco; Catholic Insight under Fr. Alphonse de Valk, c.s.b.; the Witness group under Jim Duffy; Bishop Danylak; Fr. Leonard Kennedy, c.s.b.; Fr.Paul Marx, O.S.B., founder of Human Life International; Fr. Joseph Thompson; John F. Kippley, founder of the Couple to Couple League; Dr. John Shea; David Dooley; John Stone; J.K. MacKenzie, Q.C.; Norman Lower; Deacon Daniel Dauvin; Joseph Pope; Edward and Lorene Collins; and countless other priests and laity. We do not forget those heroic parents, like Doug and Marie Lavoie, of Cochrane, Alberta, who, after making many sacrifices to raise a large family, were shocked and scandalized by the WS.

It is not true that the WS is faithful to HV. It carefully avoided full agreement with HV. This is evident in paragraph 2, where the bishops say: “We are in accord with the teaching of the Holy Father concerning the dignity of married life, and the necessity of a truly Christian relationship between conjugal love and responsible parenthood.”

They rejected the wording of their theological commission: “We are one with the Holy Father in his teaching and pastoral concerns about conjugal love and responsible parenthood.” Please note the essential difference, that is, the word ‘teaching’ was omitted in reference to conjugal love and responsible parenthood.

The Statement speaks as though the Church were still searching for the answers which the Pope and Church had already given (cf. para. 3,4,6,7,13,18,34). We see a reflection of Fr. Charles Curran’s Dissent in and for the Church in par. 34: “We stand in union with the Bishop of Rome—if this sometimes means that we 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.”

They did falter and they did differ. Instead of rejoicing in our heritage of truth about life and love, the last paragraph of the WS quotes Cardinal Newman’s Lead kindly light amidst the encircling gloom. The Statement was to bring that encircling gloom.

That the WS was not in harmony with HV was admitted by Bishop Alexander Carter, President of the CCCB in 1968. He said:

“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” (“Canadian bishops on Of Human Life,” by Rev. Edward Sheridan, S.J., America, October 19, 1968, p.349). Father Sheridan gave a correct assessment when he wrote:

“The Statement contained no general profession of assent to the whole teaching of HV, and nothing that could be interpreted as adding the local authority of the Canadian Bishops to that of the encyclical in general” (ibid.).

How can Father Prieur say that the WS is faithful to the teachings of HV when its writers admit that it is not?

Father Prieur says the WS is faithful to the teachings on conscience as understood by moral theology. This is treated below.

Objective and Subjective

3. Father Prieur states that the bishops chose to uphold the objective teachings of HV and then bring to bear what moral theology has taught for many years about what someone may have to do subjectively when several duties seem impossible to achieve in their circumstances.

First, nowhere in the WS do the bishops uphold the objective teachings of HV. The talk of conflict of duties is a smokescreen for what should more accurately be described as difficult duties. There are no principles of moral theology which would permit one to licitly counsel the performance of an intrinsically evil act. Pope John Paul II puts it this way:

“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” (L’Osservatore Romano, October 10, 1983).

Vatican II gives us true and clear teaching on conscience. The Vatican II document Gaudium et spes tells us that:

“Married couples should realize that in their behaviour they may not follow their own fancy but must be ruled by conscience–and conscience ought to be conformed to the law of God in the light of the teaching authority of the Church which is the authentic interpreter of divine law” (#50).

Put simply, conscience is to be informed and conformed; otherwise it is deformed. Cardinal Newman’s remarks on conscience are valid today. He wrote: “Conscience is a stern monitor but in this century it has been replaced by a counterfeit: self-will” (Letter to the Duke of Norfolk).

Guilt and the intrinsically evil act

4. In this paragraph Father Prieur cites a reply from the Congregation of the Clergy to a group of dissident priests in Washington, D.C. It correctly affirms that circumstances can make an intrinsically evil act diminished in guilt or even without guilt. He says that the WS is a pastoral way of saying this.

This is not a correct pastoral application of the principles governing subjective guilt. The subjective conscience may be an erroneous conscience, warped or deformed or corrupted by habit. Out of it may come fornication, adultery, contraception, sodomy, abortion, euthanasia, and other evils. May these then be sometimes counselled? Right pastoral response must be based on truth, not error. It is the objective order which the Church upholds and must uphold, whether in teaching, preaching, or in the confessional.

Anne Roche Muggeridge correctly assessed the WS when she wrote: “The Canadian Bishops, like the Protestant reformers, reversed the order of importance in moral judgment, that is, they put the private subjective elements of morality before the universal and objective” (Anne Roche Muggeridge, The Desolate City: The Catholic Church in Ruins; Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1986; pp. 97-98).

The WS and Father Prieur reject the defined doctrine expressed in HV that grace is always sufficient. Bishop Emmett Carter put it this way:

“Our statement was definitely meant to indicate to the people of Canada that if they found, as we anticipated, and God knows history has proven us to be correct, that they couldn’t follow the directives of the encyclical, then they were not to consider themselves as cut off from the church.”

Pope John Paul II expresses his rejection of this heresy in these words:

“To hold out for exceptions in the matter of the prohibition of contraceptives as if God’s grace were not sufficient is a form of atheism” (September 17, 1983).

The end result of the Winnipeg tragedy is that it created erroneous consciences. Before he left Winnipeg, Archbishop Pocock wrote to me saying that the Canadian Bishops had spoken with a nearly unanimous voice and that he expected me to accept that statement and to absolve those contracepting in good faith. Is this not counselling an erroneous conscience?

Not long ago a man told me that, before he married, his pastor told him that if he had difficulties in having a family he could invoke the Canadian Bishops and his wife could use the Pill. She had some unpleasant side effects from the Pill and so he was sterilized. The marriage broke up not long after. He stopped going to Mass, but recently, at his mother’s funeral Mass, he went to Holy Communion. He said: “My conscience is clear.” The WS created erroneous consciences in countless priests and people.

“Conflict of duties”

5. Here we are given a list of difficulties which married couples faced in 1968. Father Prieur, concludes that “the category of ‘conflict of duties’ was most apt for this situation.”

As already affirmed, difficulties do not bring a conflict of duties. The duty is clear: to obey God’s law. Using a metaphor employed by Pope John Paul II, no reasons piled high as heaven can justify the contraceptive act. The means of grace are always there. In detail these are described in HV #25 and 26 and in even greater detail in Reflections on Humanae Vitae, in the section entitled “Prayer, penance, and the Eucharist are the principal sources of spirituality for married couples” (General audience, October 3, 1984).

Section B: Solid teaching on HV and WS

There is, of course, a critical need for solid teaching on HV. There is no acceptable teaching on the WS except that which points out its grave errors.

1 & 2. In these paragraphs, Father Prieur endorses his book Married in the Lord. He says: “After almost thirty years I am happy to report that the content is still most cogent regarding the whole struggle which Catholics experience about contraception.”

I believe I can do no better than reprint here a critique of Married in the Lord which I wrote for Challenge Magazine (December, 1989):

“Married in the Lord (Liturgical Commission, Diocese of London, 1976, 1978) is a ‘Handbook for those Assisting Christian Couples Prepare for Marriage.’ The author, Fr. Michael Prieur, is professor of moral theology at St. Peter’s Seminary, London. Ontario. Although now out of print, this manual helped shape the views of many still-young couples. The pagination is that of the second revised edition.

“Fr. Prieur warns against the conclusion: ‘The Pope has spoken and that’s that’ (p.63). He says: ‘This kind of rigidity tends to eliminate any fruitful discussion of some of the real difficulties in the teaching.’”

In fact, the matter is closed precisely because the Pope has spoken and invoked the authority of Christ in doing so (HV 6).

Prieur: “We are told that the teaching of HV could be revised if fresh data or new insights warranted it (p.57).”

Foy: The Church, through four Popes, has said the teaching cannot be changed since it is divine law.

Prieur: Regarding statements of national hierarchies we read: ‘These official declarations are official teachings of the Magisterium of the Church’ (p.61).

Foy: This is untrue. Bishops exercise their office of teaching only insofar as they are in communion with the head of the episcopal college, the Holy Father (cf. Canon 375).

Father Prieur quotes with approval Par.26 of the WS (p.102, though it is called Par.16). He also quotes the misleading Par.17 (p.102, though it is called Par.16) “concerning those who find it ‘either extremely difficult or even impossible to make their own all elements of this doctrine….’”

Prieur: “Since they are not denying any point of divine and Catholic faith nor rejecting the teaching authority of the Church, these Catholics should not be considered or consider themselves shut off from the body of the faithful.”

Foy: This paragraph equivalently denies the sufficiency of grace and incorrectly says that these people do not reject the teaching authority of the Church. Father Prieur sets loose rules for the reception of Holy Communion by contracepting parties, without Confession (p.112).

It is divine law that requires sorrow, confession, and purpose of amendment. Compare the advice of this text with that of Pope Paul VI: “They (the spouses) should use the Sacraments in sorrow for their lapses and renew their wavering resolutions to obey” (L’Osservatore Romano, Dec.21, 1971).

Married in the Lord bears an Imprimatur. In 1976 it was recommended by the Ontario Bishops. After John Cattana of Toronto made several valid criticisms of it in The Catholic Register (June 5, 1976), the Toronto Senate of Priests rebuked The Register for “sniping” at Father Prieur’s book after it had been approved by the bishops of Ontario.

The September 1976 issue of the Messenger of the Sacred Heart carried an excellent article entitled “A Book Reviewed.” In all charity it pointed out the major deficiencies in Father Prieur’s manual.

Of Fr. Prieur’s book an Archbishop said in a letter to me (June 10, 1976): “It has been weakened mainly because it relies on the CCC statement on HV of 1968…. I fail to understand how the Imprimatur could have been given to it in so important a matter, without sound doctrine.”

The Archbishop referred to in the paragraph above is Archbishop Routhier of Grouard-McLennan, with whom I had a long correspondence on the WS and the Canadian Catechism. He was one of those who voiced his disapproval of the WS at Winnipeg in 1968.

Bishop Emmett Carter

In the fall of 1976, I wrote to Bishop Carter of London (later Cardinal Emmett Carter of Toronto) expressing concern over the grave errors in Married in the Lord. In his reply he did not answer my objections, but said he had full confidence in Father Prieur and that he had helped him “over the rough spots” in the writing of the manual.

It is important to note that on February 7, 1967, Bishop Carter told his London priests that they “should be confused about the use of the Pill.” He ordered them to absolve those who contracepted “in good faith.” He had forgotten or ignored that Pope Pius XII had condemned the contraceptive use of the Pill on September 12, 1958, and that Pope Paul VI had reaffirmed the teaching of the Church in 1964 and 1966, calling it a time of study and not of doubt. When HV was published in 1968 Bishop Carter and some other bishops considered the encyclical not a solution, but “a problem.”

In fairness it must be added that in a private letter dated June 15,1995, Cardinal Carter wrote: “I am not prepared to defend paragraph 26 (of the WS) totally. The phraseology was misleading and could give the impression that the bishops were saying that one could dissent at will from the Pope’s teaching.”

What to do in the future?

3. Here Father Prieur presents his recommendations for the future. He would launch a more intensive presentation on Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. That is good. The Holy Father gave us the superb “Reflections on Humanae vitae” in his audiences from July 11, 1984 to November 28, 1984.

It would be good also to launch a more intense study of Familiaris Consortio, the Apostolic Exhortation following the Synod on the Family, of 1980. Also helpful would be a study of Letter to Families from Pope John II, February 2, 1994. All of these endorse and explain the intrinsic evil of contraception and the spiritual means needed to avoid it.

4. In this final paragraph Father Prieur says many Catholics suffer from both vincible and invincible ignorance regarding contraception.

Foy: In fact many Catholics in Canada and elsewhere suffer from erroneous consciences because of false teaching such as that of the WS and that of Father Prieur. Natural Family Planning (NFP) is not a panacea. Here a caution is necessary. NFP is usually taught without moral evaluation. Serious reasons are required for its practice (HV 16). Pope John Paul II teaches that married couples who have recourse to the natural regulation of fertility might do so without valid reasons (General Audience, August 8, 1984). A marriage might even be invalid when the right to have children is excluded by NFP.

Conclusion

Some years ago I met Bishop Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska, at the Call to Holiness Convention in Detroit. He knew there was a serious problem in Canada over the WS and I asked his advice. He thought it would be helpful if even a small number of Canadian bishops were to ask the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for an evaluation of the WS. Twice I tried to bring this about, writing to bishops I thought were pro-life. Not one Latin rite bishop would agree to this procedure.

What can be done? As mentioned, some groups and many individuals are working and praying for the recall of the WS. Much more needs to be done and so we must persevere and pray and do penance. May the Holy Spirit guide all those engaged in this noble effort and give them the grace of perseverance.

At present the Church in Canada is stricken and deeply wounded by the contraceptive mentality. It is practising the “Art of Self-Extinction”, with a suicidal birth rate. The majority of Catholic couples of child-bearing age are contracepting and, if still going to Mass, receiving Holy Communion in objective sin.

In the area of life issues, most so-called Catholic hospitals are ethical wastelands.

Children in Grade 8 of Catholic schools are taught all the means of contraception in the child-abusing course Fully Alive, another fruit of the WS. The prenuptial questionnaire, intended to prevent couples from entering illicit or invalid marriages, no longer in most dioceses asks the question, as it did formerly, “Do you intend to abide by the teaching of the Church in the matter of birth-control?”

In general, across the country there is a deafening silence on the part of our spiritual leaders about the great charter of love and life called HV. Thirty-seven years after HV, a seminary professor continues to propagate the love-killing, death-dealing WS.

It is enough to make the angels weep.

 

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.

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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?

Personal Memories of Msgr. Vincent Foy: “Saving St. Michael’s Palace”

The following article was originally published in Emeritus.

Saving St. Michael’s Palace

By Monsignor Vincent Foy

St. Michael’s Palace, the rectory for St. Michael’s Cathedral, has a long and glorious history. That long history nearly came to an end in the spring of 1961. But before speaking of that, I take a brief look at the Palace’s past.

St. Michael’s Palace, as is called, was built at the same time as the Cathedral, but finished before it. It was blessed on December 7th, 1846, and was to be the Episcopal residence, Chancery Office and cathedral rectory. First to move in were Bishop Michael Power and his secretary, Fr. J. J. Hay.

Every bishop or archbishop of Toronto has lived at the Palace, had offices there or dined there. It has been the residence of a long and distinguished list of rectors, from the Very Rev. John Carroll in 1848 to Msgr. S. Bianco as of this writing in 2005. Four rectors became bishops: Very Rev. John Walsh (rector 1861- 1864) later Archbishop of Toronto; Very Rev.John Jamot (rector 1864-1874) later first Bishop of Peterborough, Fr. Martin Johnson (rector 1936-1937) later Archbishop of Vancouver, and Fr. Pearce Lacey (rector 1966-1979) later Auxiliary Bishop of Toronto.

Cardinals, and countless bishops and priests have been Palace guests. Cardinal Mindszenty and his secretary, I recall, dined there shortly before the Cardinal’s arrest and torture. Again, he was a guest after his mass in the cathedral in 1973. In 1951 a guest at the Palace was Msgr. Giovanni Montini, Pro Secretary of State, later Pope Paul VI. I recall that Cardinal McGuigan asked me to show Msgr. Montini around our matrimonial court offices. This I did. I have often said that if I knew he was to become pope I would have offered him coffee and biscuits.

In 1984, after ceremonies in the cathedral, Pope John Paul II was escorted to the Palace. Other distinguished guests were Msgr. Fulton Sheen, later Bishop Sheen and Fr. Patrick Peyton, the “Rosary Priest”, when he was promoting the Family Rosary in Toronto. One late evening he and I sat in the kitchen while he had a bowl of shredded wheat. He had missed his supper. I was much impressed by his humility and dedication. Msgr. Ronan founded St. Michael’s Choir School in the Palace in 1937.

This rather disordered list gives but a glimpse of the ecclesiastical notables who lived or were guests at the Palace. I do not detail the many momentous ecclesial decisions, appointments and sometimes little tragedies that took place within its walls. An interesting note is that in the excellent website for St. Michael’s Cathedral, we learn that St. Michael’s Palace is the oldest building in Toronto still dedicated to its original purpose – rectory of St. Michael’s Cathedral.

My own experience with the Palace began in the summer of 1940. After my first year of studying Canon Law at Laval University in Quebec City I was assigned to work in the Chancery Office as assistant to Msgr. Hugh Callaghan, the Chancellor, and to live at the Palace. I was also to be the notary in the Archdiocesan marriage tribunal. My desk was the end of the large desk of the Chancellor.

My first day at the Palace was the last day of Fr. Gregory Kelly, the rector, just appointed pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes parish. The next day Fr. Alfred McQuillen arrived as rector. The following summer I lived in the Palace as well and on completion of my studies in 1942 lived for most of a year in Blessed Sacrament rectory and went to the Chancery each day by streetcar. In the spring of 1943 I took up residence in the Palace and with the exception of two years spent at Hamilton Mountain San and San Gabriels near Saranac Lake, was there until June of 1966. At that time I held the record for the number of years lived at the Palace, but then Msgr., later Bishop, Thomas Fulton later broke record. In this period, Father Peter Hendriks succeeded Msgr. McQuillen as rector and Msgr. Bernard Kyte, who died in 1966, succeeded him.

It would take a book, as the saying goes, to recount even a portion of the events and changes at the Palace during my time. There was a constant change of faces at the long dining room table, the great majority no longer with us. I recall only two members of the laity invited to the table. About 1943 my cousin Freddy Cartan, about 22 years old and in Air Force uniform, came to say good-bye to me before going overseas. An Air Force friend accompanied him. Archbishop McGuigan saw them and invited them to lunch. About three weeks later Freddy was killed in his first bombing raid over Hamburg. He was the tail-gunner in a Lancaster bomber and although the plane arrived safely in England, Freddy was mortally wounded.

No one appeared at the dining room table except in full clerical dress. To that I remember one exception. Fr. Matt Schnitzler, my mother’s first cousin, ordained about 1913, was the first secular priest of Edmonton Archdiocese. He was a guest at the Palace for a few days in 1948. Once he came down to the dining room wearing slippers and a black shirt over which was a pair of rustic suspenders. He seemed completely unaware of the mild sensation he caused.

Living conditions at the Palace were somewhat primitive compared to today. On the top floor there were three very small rooms and four large ones. Only one of these, Fr. Cantillon’s room, had its own bathroom. The washroom opposite the top of the stairs served six priests. Fr. Cantillon had a phone in his room; the rest of us had the use of a phone in the corridor, near one of the small rooms. We could phone out through the switchboard until 9 p.m. For incoming calls each had his own signal. Mine was one long ring and three short ones. I lived at various times in all three very small rooms. When Fr. Cantillon went to Mercy Hospital, I had the great luxury of occupying his former quarters, replete with phone and bath. Here I once entertained two then good friends, Fr. Alex Carter, Montreal pastor, later Bishop Carter and his younger brother, Canon Emmett Carter. Later Cardinal Carter, then Director of Catechetics in Montreal as I was in Toronto. I recall taking them to a fine dinner at the Ports of Call restaurant on Yonge Street.

In 1957, when I was named Presiding Judge of the Toronto Provincial Matrimonial Tribunal and Domestic Prelate, I was given the two room suite on the second floor facing Church Street and opposite the top of the stairs. I remained in these prestigious accommodations until my departure in 1966.

In 1961, because of his ailing health, Cardinal McGuigan was given a Coadjutor Archbishop in the person of Archbishop Philip Pocock, Archbishop of Winnipeg. Until he could make other arrangements Archbishop Pocock was to live at St. Michael’s Palace, in the visiting bishop’s rooms on the second floor.

The rector, Msgr. Bernard Kyte, decided that the whole Palace should be spruced up in preparation for the arrival of the new guest. My own quarters on the second floor were given wall to wall carpeting. I was given a new reclining chair and other improvements. The walls of the Palace were repainted and even the baseboards were redone, after removal of the old varnishing,

It was my custom, after the morning’s work at the marriage tribunal offices on Bond St., to retire to my quarters at about five minutes to noon to wash up prior to lunch in the Palace dining room.

One morning during the Palace renovations, I climbed the stairs to the second floor and in front of me, just outside my door, white smoke was coming up between the boards, not just in one place, but in several.

I rushed to my phone and called Mary Downey at the switchboard. I said “Mary, call the Fire Department at once; there is a fire up here.” Instead of calling emergency, Mary rushed up the stairs to see what I was talking about. When she saw the smoke she went screaming down the stairs to the front office and put in the call.

Within minutes firemen came up the stairs. It was sloppy spring weather and they came into my room leaving large dirty boot-marks on my new rug. They took axes to the lower wall of my study inside and out and to the corridor floor and turned on the hoses. It was not long before all trace of the fire was extinguished.

What had happened was that a worker on the main floor, using a blowtorch, was burning off the old varnish on the baseboards and a spark had somehow got into the inner space. There is no doubt that in a few more minutes the whole Palace would have gone up in flames. The fire-chief remarked “That was a close one”.

That is the story of why we still have that glorious repository of history and memories called St. Michael’s Palace.

For a printable version of “Saving St. Michael’s Palace” click here.