The Roman Catholic Church and reproductive health

While there was only one official report of the commission, the dissenting members prepared what would later be known as the “minority report.” This report said that the teaching on contraception could not change—not for any specific reason, but because the Catholic hierarchy could not admit it was wrong: “The Church cannot change her answer, because this answer is true…It is true because the Catholic Church, instituted by Christ[*]…could not have so wrongly erred during all those centuries of its history.” It went on to say that if the hierarchy was to admit[**] it was wrong on this issue, its authority would be questioned on all “moral matters.”[iv][***]

By this time, the existence of the commission and its report recommending that the teaching on birth control be changed had leaked to the public, creating great expectation among Catholics that the Vatican was preparing to rescind the ban on artificial birth control as part of the general modernization of the church that accompanied Vatican II. Lost to most Catholics was the fact that the Vatican had established the commission as a way of containing the problem of the birth control discussion. It was a shock to Catholics—and indeed most of the world—when the encyclical Humanae Vitae was finally released by the pope on July 29, 1968, proclaiming the teaching on contraception unchanged and unchangeable.[v]

Pope Paul had completely ignored the work and recommendations of his own commission, despite five meetings over three years and a vote by 30 of the 35 commission’s lay members, 15 of the 19 theologians and 9 of 12 bishops that the teaching be changed. Instead, he latched onto the so-called minority report and declared that since the finding was not unanimous—and since the positive finding on contraceptives disagreed with previous teaching—the teaching could not be changed, a requirement that had not existed for any of the other issues discussed by the Vatican Council.

Incongruously, the encyclical did not deny the value or necessity of family planning; it just said that couples could not directly prevent conception—in other words, use modern contraceptive methods—a distinction that baffled most people. It declared that the totality of the marital relationship did not outweigh the necessity that every act of sexual intercourse embody the procreative function of marriage, the exact opposite of the finding of the birth control commission.[vi]

[*] Christ did not institute the Catholic Church

[**] implying that it was in fact wrong, and they knew it:

Admit: intransitive verb

To grant to be real, valid, or true; acknowledge or concede.

[***] In other words institutional ego (protecting its self-asserted authority) outweighed the health and well-being of millions.

[i] Garry Wills, Papal Sin, New York: Doubleday, 2000.

[ii] Robert McClory, Turning Point: The Inside Story of the Papal Birth Control Commission, New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1995.

[iii] “Reveal Papal Birth Control Texts,” National Catholic Reporter, April 19, 1967.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, July 25, 1968. http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae.html

[vi] Ibid.

From <https://www.catholicsforchoice.org/resource-library/humanae-vitae/the-birth-control-commission/

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