Tag: The Winnipeg Statement

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.

 

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

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

Fifty Reasons Why the Winnipeg Statement Should be Recalled

By  Monsignor Vincent Foy

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

–Psalm 119

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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