ANOTHER VOICE
Something that may still be relevant in the spirit of 1968
CHARLES MOORE
One thinks of 1968 as a year of radical- ism triumphant, so it comes as a shock to realise that it was the year in which Enoch Powell made his 'rivers of blood' speech, de Gaulle crushed the student revolt in Paris and the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslo- vakia. And it is 25 years ago this month that Pope Paul VI published his encyclical letter Humanae Vitae (The Right Ordering of the Procreation of Children). Somehow the idea had got about that the Pope was going to come down in favour of the Pill, which was the fashionable contraceptive of the hour, and so the shock and rage in the West when he failed to do so were immense. Since then, the fact that the Roman Catholic Church is against contra- ception has been the chief thing non- Catholics know about it, often the only thing.
I am just old enough to remember the outcry, but I had never read the encyclical until I noticed the anniversary, so I did so last weekend. It was composed in response to anxieties about population growth, to `the new understanding of the dignity of woman' and to `man's stupendous progress' in producing the required contraptions and drugs. Its answers are interesting and go, roughly, as follows.
It starts with the assertion that it is part of the magisterium of the Church to 'inter- pret the natural moral law' as well as the law of the gospel. The teaching about the birth of children derives from the Church's understanding of the nature of marriage. Regarding arguments based on 'biology, psychology, demography or sociology' as inadequate, the encyclical says that mar- riage 'is far from being the effect of chance or the result of blind evolution of natural forces. It is, in reality, the wise and provi- dent institution of God the creator, whose purpose was to establish in man his loving design. As a consequence, husband and wife, through the mutual gift of themselves . . . develop that union of two persons in which they perfect one another, in order to co-operate with God in the generation and education of new lives.'
Therefore, says Paul VI, 'responsible parenthood' (which was the popular phrase in 1968) means recognising the 'objective moral order' instituted by God, rather than calculating what might be good for the environment or economic prospects or one's personal convenience. The 'very nature of marriage' makes it clear that cou- ples are not free to act as they choose about this. The sexual act is, in its nature, for procreation. This does not mean that couples have to want or try to procreate every time they sleep together, or that they must stop sleeping together if they know they cannot procreate, but it does mean that 'any use whatever of marriage must retain its natural potential to procreate human life'. Man must never take the ini- tiative to break the connection between the `unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act'. It is all a question, the Church teaches, of who is in charge: does man have 'unlimited dominion' over his body, or does God? God, of course. It quotes John XXIII: 'Human life is sacred — all men must recognise that fact; from its inception it betrays the creating hand of God.'
Ergo, no abortion, no sterilisation, no contraception (unless it be for medical but non-contraceptive purposes); and also, although the encyclical is not directly con- cerned with these areas, no homosexual acts, premarital sex, etc. etc. The only form of contraception permitted is the 'rhythm method' (not a phrase Pope Paul uses), on the grounds that the married couple may `rightly use a facility provided by nature'.
It is a coherent argument. Whether or not one accepts its premises is a separate question. But, given those premises, how can one quarrel with the conclusion? The present Pope is expected to die quite soon, and when he does no doubt the whole thing will start again, and the Western press will look to his successor for a 'recognition of the new reality' about contraception, but it surely will not happen. For if God does declare what marriage is in this way how could He possibly countenance condoms? The Christian defenders of contraception in the interests of 'responsible parenthood' argue that its use makes people less fraz- zled. They say that parents are better at providing for the few children they have chosen to have than for the many who come along, in the unfortunate phrase coined by Mr Tom Sackville last week about single mothers, 'willy-nilly'. This may be true, but the Catholic position is not a prudential one, and so cannot be refuted by prudential arguments. It does not say that big families are better than small ones. Its teaching is not about how to make mar- riage comfortable. That is a pastoral ques- tion. Its teaching is about what marriage is.
After making its doctrinal case, the encyclical tries to persuade 'responsible men' of its truth, by speculating on 'the consequences of methods and plans for the artificial restriction of increase in the birth- rate'. The way will be wide open to marital infidelity 'and a general lowering of moral standards', it says. People, and especially young people, 'need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law'. Paul VI also says that contraceptives will persuade men to 'forget the reverence due to a woman and . . . reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of their own desires'. Reading all this at a weekend when the papers are full of statistics about family breakdown and the relation between crime, bad health, low expectations and sin- gle-parent families, it does not sound so very imprescient. The age of contraception seems to have produced more unwanted children than ever. It is an apparent para- dox, but one to which the encyclical is alert. If people have a changed idea about the purpose of sex, they will become more cal- lous about its unintended consequences the children.
Finally, Pope Paul considers the political threat — `. . . the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law . . . Who will prevent pub- lic authorities from favouring those contra- ception methods which they consider more effective?' One thinks of Mrs Virginia Bot- tomley extolling condoms. 'Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone.' One thinks of the Chinese government restricting all town-dwellers to one child per couple.
I found the text of Humanae Vitae at the back of the Annual Register for 1968. It appears next to the official communique from the Soviet-Czechoslovak 'talks' in Moscow in August 1968: 'The Soviet lead- ers reaffirmed their readiness for the broadest sincere co-operation on the basis of mutual respect, equality, territorial integrity independence and socialist soli- darity.' A quarter of a century later, some will see both documents as archaeological specimens from primitive cultures now past. But it seems to me, in the age of Aids and Mary Warnock, that the message of an elderly celibate in the Vatican might be more pertinent than has yet been allowed.
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