ON HUMAN LIFE
A pastoral letter to the people of God of northern
Colorado
on the truth and meaning of married love
Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
Archbishop of Denver
July 22, 1998
Dear
brothers and sisters in the Lord,
1.
Thirty years ago this week, Pope Paul VI issued his encyclical
letter Humanae Vitae (On Human Life), which reaffirmed the
Church's constant teaching on the regulation of births. It is
certainly the most misunderstood papal intervention of this
century. It was the spark which led to three decades of doubt
and dissent among many Catholics, especially in the developed
countries. With the passage of time, however, it has also
proven prophetic. It teaches the truth. My purpose in this
pastoral letter, therefore, is simple. I believe the message of
Humanae Vitae is not a burden but a joy. I believe this
encyclical offers a key to deeper, richer marriages. And so
what I seek from the family of our local Church is not just a
respectful nod toward a document which critics dismiss as
irrelevant, but an active and sustained effort to study Humanae
Vitae; to teach it faithfully in our parishes; and to encourage
our married couples to live it.
I. THE WORLD SINCE 1968
2.
Sooner or later, every pastor counsels someone struggling with
an addiction. Usually the problem is alcohol or drugs. And
usually the scenario is the same. The addict will acknowledge
the problem but claim to be powerless against it. Or,
alternately, the addict will deny having any problem at all,
even if the addiction is destroying his or her health and
wrecking job and family. No matter how much sense the pastor
makes; no matter how true and persuasive his arguments; and no
matter how life-threatening the situation, the addict simply
cannot understand -- or cannot act on -- the counsel. The
addiction, like a thick pane of glass, divides the addict from
anything or anyone that might help.
3.
One way to understand the history of Humanae Vitae is to examine
the past three decades through this metaphor of addiction. I
believe the developed world finds this encyclical so hard to
accept not because of any defect in Paul VI's reasoning, but
because of the addictions and contradictions it has inflicted
upon itself, exactly as the Holy Father warned.
4.
In presenting his encyclical, Paul VI cautioned against four
main problems (HV 17) that would arise if Church teaching on the
regulation of births was ignored. First, he warned that the
widespread use of contraception would lead to "conjugal
infidelity and the general lowering of morality." Exactly this
has happened. Few would deny that the rates of abortion,
divorce, family breakdown, wife and child abuse, venereal
disease and out of wedlock births have all massively increased
since the mid-1960s.
Obviously, the birth control pill has not been the only factor
in this unraveling. But it has played a major role. In fact,
the cultural revolution since 1968, driven at least in part by
transformed attitudes toward sex, would not have been possible
or sustainable without easy access to reliable contraception.
In this, Paul VI was right.
5.
Second, he also warned that man would lose respect for woman and
"no longer [care] for her physical and psychological
equilibrium," to the point that he would consider her "as a mere
instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected
and beloved companion." In other words, according to the Pope,
contraception might be marketed as liberating for women, but the
real "beneficiaries" of birth control pills and devices would be
men. Three decades later, exactly as Paul VI suggested,
contraception has released males -- to a historically
unprecedented degree -- from responsibility for their sexual
aggression. In the process, one of the stranger ironies of the
contraception debate of the past generation has been this: Many
feminists have attacked the Catholic Church for her alleged
disregard of women, but the Church in Humanae Vitae identified
and rejected sexual exploitation of women years before that
message entered the
cultural mainstream. Again, Paul VI was right.
6.
Third, the Holy Father also warned that widespread use of
contraception would place a "dangerous weapon . . . in the hands
of those public authorities who take no heed of moral
exigencies." As we have since discovered, eugenics didn't
disappear with Nazi racial theories in 1945. Population control
policies are now an accepted part of nearly every foreign aid
discussion. The massive export of contraceptives, abortion and
sterilization by the developed world to developing countries --
frequently as a prerequisite for aid dollars and often in direct
contradiction to local moral traditions -- is a thinly disguised
form of population warfare and cultural re-engineering. Again,
Paul VI was right.
7.
Fourth, Pope Paul warned that contraception would mislead human
beings into thinking they had unlimited dominion over their own
bodies, relentlessly turning the human person into the object of
his or her own intrusive power. Herein lies another irony: In
fleeing into the false freedom provided by contraception and
abortion, an exaggerated feminism has actively colluded in
women's dehumanization. A man and a woman participate uniquely
in the glory of God by their ability to co-create new life with
Him. At the heart of contraception, however, is the assumption
that fertility is an infection which must be attacked and
controlled, exactly as antibiotics attack bacteria. In this
attitude, one can also see the organic link between
contraception and abortion. If fertility can be misrepresented
as an infection to be attacked, so too can new life. In either
case, a defining element of woman's identity -- her potential
for bearing new life -- is recast as a weakness requiring
vigilant distrust and "treatment." Woman becomes the object of
the tools she relies on to ensure her own liberation and
defense, while man takes no share of the burden. Once again,
Paul VI was right.
8.
From the Holy Father's final point, much more has flowed: In
vitro fertilization, cloning, genetic manipulation and embryo
experimentation are all descendants of contraceptive
technology. In fact, we have drastically and naively
underestimated the effects of technology not only on external
society, but on our own interior human identity. As author Neil
Postman has observed, technological change is not additive but
ecological. A significant new technology does not "add"
something to a society; it changes everything -- just as a drop
of red dye does not remain discrete in a glass of water, but
colors and changes every single molecule of the liquid.
Contraceptive technology, precisely because of its impact on
sexual intimacy, has subverted our understanding of the purpose
of sexuality, fertility and marriage itself. It has detached
them from the natural, organic identity of the human person and
disrupted the ecology of human relationships. It has scrambled
our vocabulary of love, just as pride scrambled the vocabulary
of Babel.
9.
Now we deal daily with the consequences. I am writing these
thoughts during a July week when, within days of each other,
news media have informed us that nearly 14 percent of Coloradans
are or have been involved in drug or alcohol dependency; a
governor's commission has praised marriage while simultaneously
recommending steps that would subvert it in Colorado by
extending parallel rights and responsibilities to persons in
"committed relationships," including same-sex relationships;
and a young east coast couple have been sentenced for brutally
slaying their newborn baby. According to news reports, one or
both of the young unmarried parents "bashed in [the baby's]
skull while he was still alive, and then left his battered body
in a Dumpster to die." These are the headlines of a culture in
serious distress. U.S. society is wracked with sexual identity
and behavior dysfunctions, family collapse and a general
coarsening of attitudes toward the sanctity of human life. It's
obvious to everyone but an addict: We have a problem.
It's
killing us as a people. So what are we going to do about it?
What I want to suggest is that if Paul VI was right about so
many of the consequences deriving from contraception, it is
because he was right about contraception itself. In seeking to
become whole again as persons and as a people of faith, we need
to begin by revisiting Humanae Vitae with open hearts. Jesus
said the truth would make us free. Humanae Vitae is filled with
truth. It is therefore a key to our freedom.
II. WHAT HUMANAE VITAE REALLY SAYS
10.
Perhaps one of the flaws in communicating the message of Humanae
Vitae over the last 30 years has been the language used in
teaching it. The duties and responsibilities of married life
are numerous. They're also serious. They need to be considered
carefully, and prayerfully, in advance. But few couples
understand their love in terms of academic theology. Rather,
they fall in love. That's the vocabulary they use. It's that
simple and revealing. They surrender to each other. They give
themselves to each other. They fall into each other in order to
fully possess, and be possessed by, each other. And rightly so.
In married love, God intends that spouses should find joy and
delight, hope and abundant life, in and through each other --
all ordered in a way which draws husband and wife, their
children, and all who know them, deeper into God's embrace.
11.
As a result, in presenting the nature of Christian marriage to a
new generation, we need to articulate its fulfilling
satisfactions at least as well as its duties. The Catholic
attitude toward sexuality is anything but puritanical,
repressive or anti-carnal. God created the world and fashioned
the human person in His own image. Therefore the body is good.
In fact, it's often been a source of great humor for me to
listen incognito as people simultaneously complain about the
alleged "bottled-up sexuality" of Catholic moral doctrine, and
the size of many good Catholic families. (From where, one might
ask, do they think the babies come?) Catholic marriage --
exactly like Jesus Himself -- is not about scarcity but
abundance. It's not about sterility, but rather the
fruitfulness which flows from unitive, procreative love.
Catholic married love always implies the possibility of new
life; and because it does, it drives out loneliness and affirms
the future. And because it affirms the future, it becomes a
furnace of hope in a world prone to despair. In effect,
Catholic marriage is attractive because it is true. It's
designed for the creatures we are: persons meant for communion.
Spouses complete each other. When God joins a woman and man
together in marriage, they create with Him a new wholeness; a
"belonging" which is so real, so concrete, that a new life, a
child, is its natural expression and seal. This is what the
Church means when she teaches that Catholic married love is by
its nature both unitive and procreative -- not either/or.
12.
But why can't a married couple simply choose the unitive aspect
of marriage and temporarily block or even permanently prevent
its procreative nature? The answer is as simple and radical as
the Gospel itself. When spouses give themselves honestly and
entirely to each other, as the nature of married love implies
and even demands, that must include their whole selves -- and
the most intimate, powerful part of each person is his or her
fertility. Contraception not only denies this fertility and
attacks procreation; in doing so, it necessarily damages unity
as well. It is the equivalent of spouses saying: "I'll give you
all I am -- except my fertility; I'll accept all you are --
except your fertility." This withholding of self inevitably
works to isolate and divide the spouses, and unravel the holy
friendship between them . . . maybe not immediately and overtly,
but deeply, and in the long run often fatally for the marriage.
13.
This is why the Church is not against "artificial"
contraception. She is against all contraception. The notion of
"artificial" has nothing to do with the issue. In fact, it
tends to confuse discussion by implying that the debate is about
a mechanical intrusion into the body's organic system. It is
not. The Church has no problem with science appropriately
intervening to heal or enhance bodily health. Rather, the
Church teaches that all contraception is morally wrong; and not
only wrong, but seriously wrong. The covenant which husband and
wife enter at marriage requires that all intercourse remain open
to the transmission of new life. This is what becoming "one
flesh" implies: complete self-giving, without reservation or
exception, just as Christ withheld nothing of Himself from His
bride, the Church, by dying for her on the cross. Any
intentional interference with the procreative nature of
intercourse necessarily involves spouses' withholding themselves
from each other and from God, who is their partner in
sacramental love. In effect, they steal something infinitely
precious -- themselves -- from each other and from their
Creator.
14. And this is why natural family planning (NFP) differs not
merely in style but in moral substance from contraception as a
means of regulating family size. NFP is not contraception.
Rather, it is a method of fertility awareness and appreciation.
It is an entirely different approach to regulating birth. NFP
does nothing to attack fertility, withhold the gift of oneself
from one's spouse, or block the procreative nature of
intercourse. The marriage covenant requires that each act of
intercourse be fully an act of self-giving, and therefore open
to the possibility of new life. But when, for good reasons, a
husband and wife limit their intercourse to the wife's natural
periods of infertility during a month, they are simply observing
a cycle which God Himself created in the woman. They are not
subverting it. And so they are living within the law of God's
love.
15.
There are, of course, many wonderful benefits to the practice of
NFP. The wife preserves herself from intrusive chemicals or
devices and remains true to her natural cycle. The husband
shares in the planning and responsibility for NFP. Both learn a
greater degree of self-mastery and a deeper respect for each
other. It's true that NFP involves sacrifices and periodic
abstinence from intercourse. It can, at times, be a difficult
road. But so can any serious Christian life, whether ordained,
consecrated, single or married. Moreover, the experience of
tens of thousands of couples has shown that, when lived
prayerfully and unselfishly, NFP deepens and enriches marriage
and results in greater intimacy -- and greater joy. In the Old
Testament, God told our first parents to be fruitful and
multiply (Gn 1:28). He told us to choose life (Dt 30:19). He
sent His son, Jesus, to bring us life abundantly (Jn 10:10) and
to remind us that His yoke is light (Mt 11:30). I suspect,
therefore, that at the heart of Catholic ambivalence toward
Humanae Vitae is not a crisis of sexuality, Church authority or
moral relevance, but rather a question of faith: Do we really
believe in God's goodness? The Church speaks for her
Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, and believers naturally, eagerly
listen. She shows married couples the path to enduring love and
a culture of life. Thirty years of history record the
consequences of choosing otherwise.
III. WHAT WE NEED TO DO
16.
I want to express my gratitude to the many couples who already
live the message of Humanae Vitae in their married lives. Their
fidelity to the truth sanctifies their own families and our
entire community of faith. I thank in a special way those
couples who teach NFP and counsel others in responsible
parenthood inspired by Church teaching. Their work too often
goes unnoticed or underappreciated -- but they are powerful
advocates for life in an age of confusion. I also want to offer
my prayers and encouragement to those couples who bear the cross
of infertility. In a society often bent on avoiding children,
they carry the burden of yearning for children but having none.
No prayers go unanswered, and all suffering given over to the
Lord bears fruit in some form of new life. I encourage them to
consider adoption, and I appeal to them to remember that a good
end can never justify a wrong means. Whether to prevent a
pregnancy or achieve one, all techniques which separate the
unitive and procreative dimensions of marriage are always
wrong. Procreative techniques which turn embryos into objects
and mechanically substitute for the loving embrace of husband
and wife violate human dignity and treat life as a product. No
matter how positive their intentions, these techniques advance
the dangerous tendency to reduce human life to material which
can be manipulated.
17.
It's never too late to turn our hearts back toward God. We are
not powerless. We can make a difference by witnessing the truth
about married love and fidelity to the culture around us. In
December last year, in a pastoral letter entitled Good News of
Great Joy, I spoke of the important vocation every Catholic has
as an evangelizer. We are all missionaries. America in the
1990s, with its culture of disordered sexuality, broken
marriages and fragmented families, urgently needs the Gospel.
As Pope John Paul II writes in his apostolic exhortation On the
Family (Familiaris Consortio), married couples and families have
a critical role in witnessing Jesus Christ to each other and to
the surrounding culture (49, 50).
18.
In that light, I ask married couples of the archdiocese to read,
discuss and pray over Humanae Vitae, Familiaris Consortio and
other documents of the Church which outline Catholic teaching on
marriage and sexuality. Many married couples, unaware of the
valuable wisdom found in these materials, have deprived
themselves of a beautiful source of support for their mutual
love. I especially encourage couples to examine their own
consciences regarding contraception, and I ask them to remember
that "conscience" is much more than a matter of personal
preference. It requires us to search out and understand Church
teaching, and to honestly strive to conform our hearts to it. I
urge them to seek sacramental Reconciliation for the times they
may have fallen into contraception. Disordered sexuality is the
dominant addiction of American society in these closing years of
the century. It directly or indirectly impacts us all. As a
result, for many, this teaching may be a hard message to
accept. But do not lose heart. Each of us is a sinner. Each
of us is loved by God. No matter how often we fail, God will
deliver us if we repent and ask for the grace to do His will.
19.
I ask my brother priests to examine their own pastoral
practices, to ensure that they faithfully and persuasively
present the Church's teaching on these issues in all their
parish work. Our people deserve the truth about human sexuality
and the dignity of marriage. To accomplish this, I ask pastors
to read and implement the Vademecum for Confessors Concerning
Some Aspects of the Morality of Conjugal Life, and to study the
Church's teaching on marriage and family planning. I urge them
to appoint parish coordinators to facilitate the presentation of
Catholic teaching on married love and family planning --
especially NFP. Contraception is a grave matter. Married
couples need the good counsel of the Church to make right
decisions. Most married Catholics welcome the guidance of their
priests, and priests should never feel intimidated by their
personal commitment to celibacy, or embarrassed by the teaching
of the Church. To be embarrassed by Church teaching is to be
embarrassed by Christ's teaching. The pastoral
experience and counsel of a priest are valuable on issues like
contraception precisely because he
brings new perspective to a couple and speaks for the whole
Church. Moreover, the fidelity a priest shows to his own
vocation strengthens married people to live their vocation more
faithfully.
20.
As archbishop, I commit myself and my offices to supporting my
brother priests, deacons and their lay collaborators in
presenting the whole of the Church's teaching on married love
and family planning. I owe both the clergy of our local Church
and their staffs -- especially the many dedicated parish
catechists -- much gratitude for the good work they have already
accomplished in this area. It is my intention to ensure that
courses on married love and family planning are available on a
regular basis to more and more people of the archdiocese, and
that our priests and deacons receive more extensive education in
the theological and pastoral aspects of these issues. I direct,
in a particular way, our Offices of Evangelization and
Catechetics; Marriage and Family Life; Catholic Schools; Youth,
Young Adult and Campus Ministries; and the Rite of Christian
Initiation for Adults to develop concrete ways to better present
Church teaching on married love to our people, and to require
adequate instruction in NFP as part of all marriage preparation
programs in the archdiocese.
21.
Two final points. First, the issue of contraception is not
peripheral, but central and serious in a Catholic's walk with
God. If knowingly and freely engaged in, contraception is a
grave sin, because it distorts the essence of marriage: the
self-giving love which, by its very nature, is life-giving. It
breaks apart what God created to be whole: the person-uniting
meaning of sex (love) and the life-giving meaning of sex
(procreation). Quite apart from its cost to individual
marriages, contraception has also inflicted massive damage on
society at large: initially by driving a wedge between love and
the procreation of children; and then between sex (i.e.,
recreational sex without permanent commitment) and love.
Nonetheless -- and this is my second point -- teaching the truth
should always be done with patience and compassion, as well as
firmness. American society seems to swing peculiarly between
puritanism and license. The two generations -- my own and my
teachers' -- which once led the dissent from Paul VI's
encyclical in this country, are generations still reacting
against the American Catholic rigorism of the 1950s. That
rigorism, much of it a product of culture and not doctrine, has
long since been demolished. But the habit of skepticism
remains. In reaching these people, our task is to turn their
distrust to where it belongs: toward the lies the world tells
about the meaning of human sexuality, and the pathologies those
lies conceal.
22.
In closing, we face an opportunity which comes only once in many
decades. Thirty years ago this week, Paul VI told the truth
about married love. In doing it, he triggered a struggle within
the Church which continues to mark American Catholic life even
today. Selective dissent from Humanae Vitae soon fueled broad
dissent from Church authority and attacks on the credibility of
the Church herself. The irony is that the people who dismissed
Church teaching in the 1960s soon discovered that they had
subverted their own ability to pass anything along to their
children.
The
result is that the Church now must evangelize a world of their
children's children -- adolescents and young adults raised in
moral confusion, often unaware of their own moral heritage, who
hunger for meaning, community, and love with real substance.
For all its challenges, this a is tremendous new moment of
possibility for the Church, and the good news is that the Church
today, as in every age, has the answers to fill the God-shaped
empty places in their hearts. My prayer is therefore simple:
May the Lord grant us the wisdom to recognize the great treasure
which resides in our teaching about married love and human
sexuality, the faith, joy and perseverance to live it in our own
families -- and the courage
which Paul VI possessed to preach it anew.
+ Charles J.
Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
Archbishop of Denver
July 22, 1998
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Mary
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