Humanae Vitae and Pope John Paul II: 1984, March-August
Excerpts from J.F.Kippley, Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality (Ignatius, 2005, Chapter 7. References are in the endnotes of Chapter 7.)
If it would be impossible to surpass the strength of the statements made in 1983, the Pope would still manage to make a unique emphasis in 1984. On March 1, speaking to a group of priests participating in a seminar on responsible parenthood, the Holy Father emphasized that the teaching of Humanae Vitae expresses the truth of human nature. He asked, “When, in fact, is the human conscience ‘reconciled,’ when is it deeply at peace? When it is in the truth. … Humanae Vitae and Familiaris Consortio, in fidelity to the Church’s tradition, have taught the truth of conjugal love, inasmuch as it is a communion of persons.” And again: “The moral norm taught by Humanae Vitae and Familiaris Consortio is the defense of the entire truth of conjugal love, since it expresses the absolutely necessary demands of this love.”23 (In this and subsequent quotations, all emphasis was in the original English text. References are found in Chapter 7 of Sex and the Marriage Covenant, Ignatius, 2005)
A bit later in March the Pope reaffirmed the teaching against contraception and sterilization while receiving the ad limina visit of bishops from Costa Rica.24 Then on 22 March 1984, the Bishop of Rome met with the Episcopal Council and the presbyterate of the Diocese of Rome. Referring to Humanae Vitae, he noted that “it was certainly a prophetic voice of the Church and especially of Pope Paul VI. It says ‘yes’ to responsible motherhood and fatherhood; it says ‘no’ decisively and clearly.”25
In June, while speaking to two congresses on marriage, family and responsible procreation, he addressed the importance of providing the practical help of natural family planning instruction: “The Church is extremely grateful for what you are doing . . . The teaching of natural methods is extremely vital for the human and Christian well being of so many couples, and hence it must never be something purely technical. It must be rooted in true science and in a complete view of the human person.”
In July of 1984, Pope John Paul II opened an unprecedented teaching effort regarding love and sexuality. On July 11, he began the first of a series of 15 talks to uphold the teaching reaffirmed by Humanae Vitae. These talks are now published in a 603-page book, The Theology of the Body, and subsequent parenthetical references such as (TB 386) or simply (386) are to page numbers in that book.27
11 July 1984: The Pope opened the series of talks with a special reference to sections 11 and 12 of Humanae Vitae and this explanation: “The considerations I am about to make concern particularly the passage of the encyclical Humanae Vitae that deals with the ‘two significances of the marriage act’ and their ‘inseparable connection.’ I do not intend to present a commentary on the whole encyclical, but rather to illustrate and examine one of its passages. From the point of view of the doctrine contained in the quoted document, that passage has a central significance (TB 386). …The moral norm, constantly taught by the Church in this sphere and recalled and reconfirmed by Paul VI in his Encyclical, arises from the reading of the ‘language of the body in truth’” (TB 388).
18 July 1984: “The Encyclical Humanae Vitae, therefore, contains the moral norm . . . Acts in conformity with the norm are morally right, while acts contrary to it are intrinsically illicit . . . This norm is in accordance with the sum total of revealed doctrine contained in biblical sources (cf. HV, n.4) . . . It seems to be totally reasonable to look precisely in the ‘theology of the body’ for the foundation of the truth of the norms that concern the fundamental problematic of man as ‘body’: ‘the two will become one flesh’ (Gen 2:24)” (TB 389).
25 July 1984: In this talk the Holy Father taught that Humanae Vitae is truly pastoral, not abstract and indifferent to human conditions. “Pastoral concern means the search for the true good of man, a promotion of the values engraved in his person by God” (TB 392).
1 August 1984: The Pope made the first of several affirmations that natural family planning should not be used selfishly. “The concept of ‘responsible parenthood’ contains the disposition not merely to avoid ‘a further birth’ but also to increase the family in accordance with the criteria of prudence” (TB 394).
He then went on to make an indirect reference to the language of the body, noting that the relevant principle of conjugal morality is, therefore, “fidelity to the divine plan manifested in the ‘intimate structure of the conjugal act’ and in the ‘inseparable connection of the two significances of the conjugal act,’” (TB 394), i.e., the unitive and the procreative meanings.
8 August 1984: The Pope noted that Humanae Vitae recognized that couples using unnatural methods of birth control “can be motivated by ‘acceptable reasons’ for postponing pregnancy; however, this does not change the moral character which is based on the very structure of the conjugal act as such” (395). Then, he noted that “the theology of the body is not merely a theory, but rather a specific, evangelical Christian pedagogy of the body,” deriving from the nature of the Gospel which “reveals man’s true good, for the purpose of modeling . . . man’s earthly life in the perspective of the hope of the future world” (396).
22 August 1984: The Pope focused on the responsibilities inherent in being a human person: “Man is precisely a person because he is master of himself and has self-control. Indeed, insofar as he is master of himself he can give himself to the other” (398).
Then, he noted that the very language of the body signifies both love and potential fecundity and that both “pertain to the intimate truths of the conjugal act.” However, contraceptive behavior denies one aspect of this truth. “Therefore, in such a case the conjugal act, deprived of its interior truth, because artificially deprived of its procreative capacity, ceases also to be an act of love” (398).
Continuing to sharpen the focus on the true meaning of the conjugal embrace, the Holy Father noted how contraception violates the truth of self-mastery and of the reciprocal gift of each other. “Such a violation of the interior order of the conjugal union, which is rooted in the very order of the person, constitutes the essential evil of the contraceptive act” (398, emphasis added).
28 August 1984: The lectures of this week and the next focused upon the proper attitudes and use of natural family planning. Humanae Vitae “underlines that a right and lawful regulation of fertility demands above all from husband and wife a definite family and procreative attitude . . . It requires ‘that they acquire and possess solid convictions about the true values of life and of the family’ (HV 21)” (TB 399). What is at stake, moreover, “is not merely a matter of a definite ‘technique’ but of ethics in the strict sense of the term as the morality of conduct” (400).
Thus, “in the case of a morally upright regulation of fertility effected by means of periodic continence . . . it is a case of living by the Spirit (cf. Gal 5:25)” (401). Why? The virtuous right use of natural family planning “is determined not so much by fidelity to an impersonal ‘natural law’ as to the Creator-Person, the Source and Lord of the order which is manifested in such a law” (401).