Refusal to accept the teachings of a council or encyclical, such as opposition to Humanae Vitae—Pope Paul VI’s encyclical on contraception, can represent serious disobedience or heresy for the faithful or bishops, writes Msgr. Pedro Lopez-Gallo. (Courtesy L’Osservatore Romano)
Half a century later, I still remember being astonished at the front-page news of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper. I was working in Rome at the time, it was August 6, 1968, and the topic was “On the Regulation of Birth.”
Pope Paul VI’s encyclical, Humanae Vitae, condemned all forms of birth control except natural planning methods. It was a tremendous shock, especially since the majority of the members of the commission—created by John XXIII in 1963 and confirmed by Paul VI to study the subject during the ecumenical council Vatican II—appeared to have favoured the legitimacy of contraception.
The entire Church had been living in optimism. The commission had opened the way to an easy, permissive solution, but the Pope presented a completely different teaching of marriage, raising different moral issues.
The fundamental principles applied by Christians in reflecting on moral problems associated with procreation are the sacredness of human life, love of neighbour, and respect for the sovereignty and providence of God.
On the basis of these principles, early Christian thinkers, including the authors of the Didache, Athenagoras, St. Jerome, and St. Augustine, were united in their condemnation of infanticide and abortion, in contrast to their pagan contemporaries.
So the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church remains and confirms the teaching of Pius XI’s encyclical Casti Connubii (1930) which condemns the use of anything that deprives marriage of its natural power of procreation.
I was not the only one in shock. Christianity as a whole was disturbed by Humanae Vitae. For a long time the Catholic community had assumed that the verdict would be different. The matter had been raised at the Vatican Council, but was reserved by Paul VI with no further discussion.
The papal commission set up in 1963 was to examine population problems and to confirm Catholic arguments based on demographics and modern science. The members quickly discovered that the issues were more fundamental than had been supposed. The laity had grown in freedom and liberty. Previous teaching had focused on barrier contraceptives. Now, the Pill, which did not interfere with the marriage act, was available with the additional advantage that women could be in control.
By the final general meeting in 1965, there were 58 members which included married couples. The conclusion of the six cardinals, 13 archbishops, and the Pope’s theologians was acceptance, by a substantial majority, that contraception was not intrinsically evil and that this verdict was in basic continuity with tradition and the teaching of the Magisterium.
Pope Paul, however, undertook an independent study and eventually, in Humanae Vitae, rejected the commission’s recommendation of a relaxation of the Church’s traditional teaching.
Tumult is not too strong a word to describe the reaction on the day the encyclical was published. Many bishops discredited the document saying it was dead before it hit the ground. Others had more constructive arguments. Bishop Christopher Butler of Westminster wrote in The Sunday Times that since the encyclical was not presented as infallible, it was in fact fallible. He accepted that his view might not be popular but that it was theologically true.
In France, the papers Le Monde and Figaro were strongly opposed to Humanae Vitae and favoured birth control, publishing radical arguments on contraception.
In Canada, there was widespread opposition among the bishops to the teaching of Paul VI. A glorious exception was the Archbishop of Vancouver, James Francis Carney, who defended the holy document with all his strength. His fidelity to the Holy See was so strong and public that Msgr. Angelo Palmas, the pontifical nuncio, wrote to the Holy See about his courage and ardent zeal in keeping true fidelity to Rome, and the Pope appointed him member and consultor of the Congregation of the Clergy.
Sometimes, the faithful are not satisfied, or worse, opposed to the Church’s decisions. The refusal to accept what a council or an encyclical requires can be a serious disobedience or heresy for the faithful or bishops.
Heresy is the formal denial or doubt of any defined doctrine of the Catholic faith. In antiquity, the Greek word “heresy” denoted “choice” and was applied to the tenets of particular schools of philosophy. In this sense it appears occasionally in Scripture and the writings of the early Fathers. But it is also employed in a disparaging sense and increasingly for theological error. For example: “If he refuses to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as the Gentile and the publican” (Mt.18:17).
During the First Vatican Council, Pius IX was unable to avoid the French movement called La Vieille Eglise, and it happened again with Vatican II when Bishop Marcel Lefebvre was suspended from priestly ministry for refusing a direct Vatican order prohibiting the celebration of priestly ordinations.
In a way, Pope Francis may have provoked a misinterpretation of the Catholic faith by allowing for the possibility of some couples living in adultery to receive Communion, when in fact we learned from our infancy that we cannot receive the sacraments unless we are in the grace of God.