Responsible
men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by
the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and
plans for artificial birth control.
Let them
first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for
marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not
much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand
that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need
incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for
them to break that law.
Another
effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use
of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and,
disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere
instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her
as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.
Pope
Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, 17
Reflection – Oh, is it the weekend already? I guess
it’s time for another thrilling installment of ‘weekends with Humanae Vitae’
then! My posting will be a bit wonky the next couple of days, as I am going to
Ottawa to give a talk on Saturday. It’s just a day thing, so I will be posting,
just not at the normal times.
Now we come
into the part of the document where people reading it start throwing around the
word ‘prophetic’, in other words, the part where Pope Paul VI seems to have
anticipated pretty well the developments of the subsequent decades following
upon the widespread acceptance of contraception. I don’t know about prophetic exactly—it’s not a word I use
lightly—but certainly the Pope was right in his predictions.
It is
important to note here, though, that the truth or falsehood of the Church’s
teaching in no way rests on whether or not he got this part right. We are not
consequentialists, deciding that things are good or evil depending on their
results; contraception is evil because it denies the divine-human nature and
meaning of human sexuality—evil in itself, not just evil in its effects, in
other words. That is important, as people will start quibbling with this
section of the encyclical and then claim that they have debunked the encyclical’s
argument. Well no, you haven’t, and if you think you have it just proves that
you really don’t understand the Church’s teaching.
That being
said, I don’t know how anyone can seriously argue that HV 17 does not describe the state of affairs in the
year 2014 fairly accurately. Internet pornography use is pandemic, and the
average age of exposure to online sex for boys is 12, with many viewing their
first images much younger. A university study that tried to measure the impact
of pornography use on young men had to be abandoned because they simply
couldn’t find any young men at all who had not used it.
And is this
anything, can it be anything, besides an expression of sexuality in which men “forget
the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional
equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his
own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround
with care and affection”?
Meanwhile,
IRL, divorce rates hover somewhere around 50%, falling somewhat of late mostly
because people aren’t bothering to get married in the first place, and the
hookup culture is still strong in the young adult population, in which sex is completely
detached from relationship, caring, let alone commitment and mutual responsibility
for one another. What else is this but an opening “wide the way for marital
infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards”? The Pope was right about
what would happen, and we are all reaping the fruits of it.
The idea
behind contraception was that, by separating sex from procreation, we could
more strongly express sex and its link to love. It was a utopian and somewhat
unreal picture of humanity, leaving out of consideration entirely the capacity
of human beings to be selfish and exploitative.
Sex is a very
good thing, created by God and blessed, a power for love and life in this world
that is very strong. But fragmented into its component parts, which is exactly what
contraception does—the physical pleasure over here, the expression of love over
there, the creation of a new life somewhere far, far away—all that inherent
power within sex runs amuck, is turned in on itself, and does great harm. Not because sex is bad, but because (to put it baldly) we are bad, or at least somewhat so.
But, good
news! Or rather, Good News. The way back is always there, the way to living out
sexuality in a manner that is life-giving and love-creating is always there. It
requires repentance, which is never easy, but the grace of God is not withheld
from those who choose to embrace chastity and sexual integrity in our world
today. We have made a mess of things, as the Pope said we would, but we can
clean up that mess, with God’s help.