During the last half of July, I had an interesting dialogue with a gentleman who received the same orthodox Catholic education I did at the Institute of Lay Theology (ILT) in the early Sixties. This was a one-year program to prepare parish lay evangelists. The occasion of our dialogue was an invitation to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of ILT in 1959.
The celebration day will have a two-hour panel of seven presentations, followed by another couple hours of discussion, etc. The program is titled The Greening of the Good News and each presentation is titled “The Good News and such-and-such.” Since there was nothing titled “The Good News and Humanae Vitae,” I wrote to call attention to this omission. My correspondent replied that he regarded it as Bad News, and he noted a few other Catholic teachings from which he dissents.
We went back and forth a half dozen times or so. Early on he made gratuitous assertions such as “If I am not mistaken, you go to the Catholic Church to be saved. I, on the other hand, go to the Catholic Church to save it (especially the pope).” A modest fellow is he.
Later he offered his arguments for dissenting from Humanae Vitae, and these were truly surprising. It was déjà vu, the 1960s all over again. These were the arguments that were making the rounds before and after Humanae Vitae. These and a lot more were the arguments I answered in my first book, Covenant, Christ and Contraception published by Alba House in 1970. I could scarcely believe that these arguments were still floating around. This fact is a good selling point for reading that book in its updated and expanded version, Sex and the Marriage Covenant: A Basis for Morality now published by Ignatius.
I’m going to be addressing some of his arguments in the next few blogs, but first let me make an impassioned plea for you to buy the book on the cheap. Sheila and I went to dinner Friday night at a little place we had seen a few days earlier. We were a bit surprised by the prices and even more surprised by the poor quality of one of the entrees. We put out $29.05 including tip for a dinner that was worth hardly half that much and I got thinking. We dropped twenty-nine bucks for a lousy dinner that left us only a bad memory and a bunch of calories and some vitamins. But when people look at a book for half that much, they seem to have a very hard time parting with cash for a book that will last a long time, and it’s something you might keep going back to repeatedly for answers to questions that arise from our social environment.
Right now you can get a book that addresses all the key questions in the birth control controversy at a real bargain. Ignatius is having a big August sale. Normally priced at $17.95, Sex and the Marriage Covenant is NOW ON SALE FOR ONLY $5.00. You need to get it directly from Ignatius, either by phone or online. THIS OFFER IS GOOD ONLY THROUGH THE END OF AUGUST. So hurry. Buy two so you have one for lending.
Next week: The “People of God” argument. How do you respond to those who say that the big numbers of Christians who use contraception reflects the work of the Holy Spirit?
John F. Kippley