Michael W. Higgins is a distinguished professor of Catholic thought at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn.
The year 1968 was momentous on several fronts: historical, political and moral. France was roiled with student rebellion, Prague’s spark of freedom was doused and the United States was traumatized by the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.
The Catholic world, too, had its upheavals: Its principal spiritual writer and most popular monk, Thomas Merton, died by accidental electrocution (although the hoary charge that he was assassinated surfaces hydra-like on a periodic basis) and the “Pope of the Council,” Paul VI, issued on July 25 Humanae vitae, his long awaited encyclical on artificial means of birth regulation.
Pope Paul VI waves as he moves in procession in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City, June 30, 1963, after his coronation as head of the Roman Catholic Church.Associated Press
The encyclical reinforced the traditional ban against birth control, a position that startled as many inside the Roman Catholic Church as it did outside. For some time, a growing expectation of change in the teaching had created a momentum that came to a grinding halt with the Pope’s document. The shock waves unleashed by Humanae vitae were strong and long-lasting. A massive diminishment of the credibility of papal teaching on sexual matters created an ecclesial nightmare the authorities are still struggling to emerge from.
The fiftieth anniversary of Humanae vitae itself has produced some remarkable developments: the author of the controversial publication is scheduled to be sainted this Fall; various conservative Catholic groups have been emboldened to champion the Pope and Humanae vitae as prophetic; and the war against contraception in the political sphere has intensified.
Humanae vitae is about much more than the reiteration of the traditional ban against all forms of artificial birth control, just as Catholic teaching on sexuality is about much more than the negatively reductive caricatures floating in the public mind. However, the real crisis caused by its publication stems from papal authority’s vast misjudgment on matters pertaining to the lives of the laity.
It was, in fact, Pope Paul’s predecessor, John XXIII, who established a commission to advise him on birth control. These advisers, all men, included Jesuit and Dominican specialists in demographics and sociology, lay physicians and human-rights authorities. The commission had yet to meet when Pope John died. His successor expanded it to include a far greater number of experts: ethicists, psychiatrists, gynecologists, theologians, canonists and philosophers. Now known as the Pontifical Commission on Population, Family and Birth, it had work to do and anticipation of change in church teaching mounted.
But then Pope Paul removed the issue from discussion at the Second Vatican Council, arrogating all decision-making on the matter to the pontiff alone. He then chose to ignore the majority position of the commission – which recommended a change in church teaching – and opted instead for a minority stance that appealed to the Pope’s anxiety over ushering in a change that could sunder papal authority.
The rest is history.
The Catholic world was riven: Theologians dissented in astounding numbers; bishops struggled to navigate the turbulent waters that the church found itself in by both accepting the Pope’s position as authoritative but also pastorally responding to a distraught laity; Catholic conservatives and liberals found a greater divide than ever in their ecclesial lives; suspensions and censures flourished in several jurisdictions as prelates disciplined critics (one of my own professors was banished to the Black Mountains of Wales for being a signatory to a letter of dissent published in The Times of London). An unholy mess.
Was it really necessary?
Had Pope Paul trusted the instincts of the laity, their competence and experience in all matters related to married life, had he chosen to rely on the consensus fidelium – that broader and inclusive attention to the mind of all the constituents that make up the church in the fullest sense – and had he allowed the Council Fathers to debate the issue rather than reserving the final decision to his office, the plummeting respect for the church to legislate and counsel on all matters sexual might have been averted.
By every statistical measurement, Catholic laity have rejected the teaching in astonishing numbers. It hasn’t been received by them as a credible and meaningful teaching that reflects their direct experience and, accordingly, they have redefined their relationship to the church. Papal authority is in tatters.
What Pope Paul feared would happen if he did not reaffirm the traditional ban – loss of trust in papal teaching on family matters – was generated by his very decision. One of the additional ironies of it all is that the key developer of the oral contraceptive, at the time, was a devout and loyal Roman Catholic American gynecologist, John Rock.
Pope Paul should be raised to the altars this fall; abundant evidence attests to his saintliness. But in spite of, not because of, Humanae vitae.