FAUSTO GOMEZ OP
I read once more Blessed Paul VI Encyclical Letter Humane Vitae (1968) in June 2018. Thereafter, I re-visited its doctrinal development through its fifty years of existence. Clearly, the Magisterium of the Church re-reads, interprets, renews and explains its teachings in different situations and distinct “signs of the times.”
Main magisterial documents which developed Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae are the following: John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio (1981), and Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae (1995); Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia (2016); Catechism of the Catholic Church, CCC (1992, 1997); Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, New Charter for Health Care Workers [Vatican City, 2016] English Translation by the National Catholic Bioethics Center [Philadelphia, 2017]. Hereafter, we shall touch briefly on some important ideas related to the magisterial development of the Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae on the regulation of birth.
Pope Benedict said that Paul VI “has been proved prophetically right” and that “the basic lines of HV are still correct” (Light of the World. With Peter Seewald, 2010). Later on, the Pope Emeritus said that John Paul II complemented the natural-law viewpoint of Paul VI Encyclical on the regulation of birth with a personalistic vision (Cf. Benedict XVI, Last Testament. With Peter Seewald, 2016).
Morality and majorities. Moralists keep telling us that morality is not a question of majorities. Human dignity and fundamental rights are not decided by a vote, where the majority of votes win. It is a question of respecting dignity, justice, truth and freedom. It is a question of what is right. Writes Pope John Paul II: “Not even the majority of a social body may violate these rights, by going against the minority, by isolating, oppressing, or exploiting it, or by attempting to annihilate it” (Encyclical, Veritatis Splendor, VS, 99; cf Encyclical Centesimus Annus, CA, 44). Pope Benedict XVI said: “I would insist that statistics do not suffice as a criterion for morality; … by the same token, the result of surveys about what people do or how they live is not in and of itself the measure of what is true and right”. That said, Pope Benedict adds something to reflect upon: “It is correct there is much in this area [of sexual ethics] that needs to be pondered and expressed in new ways” (Light of the World).
The right of the faithful “to receive Catholic doctrine in its purity and integrity must always be respected” (VS, 113). Unity of moral and pastoral judgments by theologians and pastors is required so that the faithful “may not have to suffer anxiety of conscience” (FC, 34; cf. HV, 28). Priests, theologians, catechists are asked by the Church, Mother and Teacher, “to maintain uniform criteria.” The Pontifical Council for the Family explains: Not infrequently the faithful are scandalized by the lack of unity, both in the area of catechesis as well as in the Sacrament of Reconciliation” (Vademecum for Confessors, 1997, 16; cf. HV, 28).
Like Paul VI, the continuing magisterium on the transmission of life is placed within the framework of the Christian vision of the human person, sexuality, marriage and the family. Man and woman are images of God. “God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27). In Familiaris Consortio, St John Paul II says that “love is the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being” (FC, 11).
Integral human sexuality As we said earlier, sexuality is not merely biological sexuality. It is not only the male or female organs. It is an essential dimension of human life, expression love. The human person is body-soul, individual-person, social being, and creature-child of God. Affirming that the genealogy of a person is inscribed in the biology of generation, Pope John Paul II advances the teaching of Paul VI on the matter. The Polish Pope writes: “In affirming that the spouses, as parents, cooperate with God the Creator in conceiving and giving birth to a new human being, we are not speaking merely with reference to the laws of biology. Begetting is the continuation of creation” (EV, 43).
Integral human sexuality has biological, psychological, social, intellectual and spiritual dimensions. “There is an intrinsic dimension between sex and person.” Theologian Lucas explains well that the following three points have to be underlined: sexuality touches the whole person; sexuality is complementariness and communion, and sexuality implies a close relationship between love and procreation.
In Christian perspective, sexuality is directed to the union of a man and a woman that is sealed in marriage, which respects the nature of love as exclusive, total, and permanent. Conjugal love is faithful and indissoluble. Writes Pope Francis: “A person who cannot choose to love forever can hardly love for a single day” (AL, 319). This exclusive and permanent union of marriage is perfected in the sacrament of marriage, sign of God’s presence, of Christ’s love for his Church, and grace in the ecclesial community of faith.
Conjugal love is – Pope Francis says – “an affective union,” “the love between husband and wife. A love sanctified, enriched and illuminated by the grace of the sacrament of marriage” (AL, 120). Conjugal love is properly fed and enriched by conjugal chastity (cf AL, 12). This is why education in the family includes education in chastity, which is “absolutely essential” (FC, 37). Chastity is “a virtue that enables us to come into possession of ourselves as sexual beings so that we can give ourselves to others in love and love others even as we have been and are loved by God” (William May). Chastity is a general virtue needed by all human beings. There are different kinds of chastity according to different states of life – married, single, or consecrated to God. In the context of Christian marriage, conjugal chastity may be defined as “The total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love” (Pontifical Council for the Family, Vademecum for Confessors, 2).
The Magisterium of the Church proclaims clearly that true marriage is between a man and a woman who love each other – for life. Moreover, married man and woman, equal in dignity and rights, complement each other’s identity as sexual beings. This mutual complementariness is opposed to the ideology of gender, “which denies the difference and reciprocity of a man and a woman and envisages a society without sexual differences, thereby eliminating the anthropological bases of the family” (AL, 55; cf. 54).
A domestic Church, the Christian family is the sanctuary of life committed to “proclaim, celebrate and serve life” (EV, 92). The family is a community of love and life. It is “the place where life is conceived and cared for,” and, therefore, it would be “a horrendous contradiction when it becomes a place where life is rejected and destroyed” (AL, 83). Humanae Vitae is clearly for life from the moment of conception and also against euthanasia, but is silent – Pope Paul VI was silent – on the death penalty. Today, it is clearly affirmed by the Magisterium that human life ought to be defended consistently – not only from the moment of conception but up to natural death. In his Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia on Love in the Family Pope Francis writes: “The Church not only feels the urgency to assert the right to a natural death, without aggressive treatment and euthanasia, but likewise firmly rejects the death penalty” (AL, 83).
Let us close with the clear words of Pope Francis: Christian marriage, as a reflection of the union between Christ and his Church, is fully realized in the union between man and woman who give themselves to each other in a free, faithful and exclusive love, who belong to each other until death and are open to the transmission of life, and are consecrated by the sacrament, which grants them the grace to become a domestic church and a leaven of new life for society (AL, 292).
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