Whatever Made Me Think I Had Choices?

I recently found on my bookshelf a Catholic Update from 1983 titled “Fifteen Years After Humanae Vitae: Birth Control and the Conscientious Catholic.”  This four-page, monthly paper is published by St. Anthony Messenger Press, not exactly a bastion of liberalism.   And, yet, it concludes by asking couples to make up their own minds on the topic, to follow their consciences.     

Kenneth Overberg, SJ, begins the article by conjecturing that many will say it’s unnecessary, the polar positions being that Humanae Vitae is the final word which  must be followed no matter what and that it’s nonsense.  The aim of this Update is to help those in the middle deal conscientiously with the matter.

This Update would have come into my home about the time my husband and I were attending NFP workshops.  At that time my bookshelf contained a copy of Humane Vitae, a weighty book with a bright yellow dustcover, but I don’t think I ever got around to reading much of it.  This Update, however, looks well read.  

The author writes first about papal teachings in general.  Even infallible statements, such as Humanae Vitae, should be respected as guides to Christian living.   In Humanae Vitae Pope Paul praises human dignity, the meaningfulness of sexuality and the responsibility entailed in parenthood.  What stirred controversy, however, is the complete prohibition of contraception as an "intrinsic evil."  The unitive and procreative aspects of sex must not be separated.  Every act of sexual intercourse must be open to conception.  NFP is acceptable because it takes passive advantage of a woman’s natural cycle of fertility without involving a positive act against conception.

Pope John Paul II in Familiaris Consortio reaffirms Humanae Vitae’s stance against artificial birth control, which prevents the complete self-giving of husband and wife.  NFP, on the other hand, encourages dialogue, respect, shared responsibility and self-control.

National conferences of bishops demonstrated a range of reactions to the papal teachings of Paul and John Paul regarding birth control.  Both the German and the Scandinavian bishops stressed placing one’s conscience above following an encyclical that does not convince.  They added that no such dissenter should be considered a “bad Catholic.” The Canadian bishops issued a statement in which they stressed “a spirit of openness to the teaching of the Church” but also the assurance that “whoever honestly chooses the course which seems right to him does so in good conscience.”  After the Canadian bishops presented Pope Paul VI with a copy of their statement, they heard back from their apostolic delegate that the Pope was “quite satisfied with their interpretation.”  In Human Life in Our Day, on the other hand, the American bishops reiterated Paul’s language, calling contraception an “objective evil.” 

US theologians did not necessarily agree with the US bishops.  Richard McCormick, SJ, criticized Humanae Vitae for making biology and natural processes the basis for morality when the criterion should be the whole person, not one aspect only.  Many contemporary theologians agreed with McCormick.  To them, the papal documents looked outmoded.

The Update goes on to explain the workings of conscience.  The author calls conscience the self asking, “What ought I to do?” and “What ought I to be?”  The first dimension of conscience is general moral awareness—knowing right from wrong.  The second is the search for specific moral values—the search for truth.  The third is concrete judgment—faced with conflicting moral values and in the light of the search for truth, making a choice. 

It seems to me that the mature, conscious consideration and decision making that this article advocates would turn us all into "Cafeteria Catholics."  Given the rich and varied fare of the Catholic spread, in the end we must make choices.  Not to do so would render us either starving or stuffed and sick. 

When we were teenagers, the brother a year older than I said, "Barbara, you're a born follower."  He may have been right.  With any novel idea, there seems to be a lag before I catch up with bolder, more original thinkers.  When, after ten years of NFP, I switched to the diaphragm it was not in the spirit of revolt.  The seeds had been sown by the views I’d been exposed to in my reading and in the zeitgeist—not just outside the Church but inside as well.

After three natural childbirths and three breastfed babies, the natural and holistic method of NFP had fit right in.  And yet, although I deplore the high rate of C-sections, I would have wanted to have one if the life of me or my baby depended on it.  I would have bottle fed a baby if he failed to thrive on my milk.  I would have accepted painkillers if natural techniques failed.  And so when during menopause NFP became so very chancy I turned to a surer, artificial method.