The current debate over health insurance and contraception has raised interesting questions for people of faith, particularly Catholics. I’m past menopause, and so contraception is not an issue for me. Yet I’m interested in it—in the same way I remain interested in pregnancy or childbirth. Avoiding or embracing pregnancy is the stuff of real life—the vivid centerpiece of youth and middle age. As a woman, a mother, and a Catholic, I’m part of it. I remember the drama, the excitement, the fear. Pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding are intense experiences. For the sustained nature of the physical bond, nothing compares. But it begins with sex, and sex is never simple.
And so it is unsettling when men who may never have experienced sex feel qualified not just to speak about it but to pronounce on it with certainty. In an article in the New York Times (February 18), Fr. Roger Landry, a priest in my old diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts, is quoted as saying, “What happens in the use of contraception, rather than embracing us totally as God made the other, with the masculine capacity to become a dad, or the feminine capacity to become a mom, we reject that paternal and maternal leaning.”
Well, no, Fr. Landry, we don’t. We don’t reject it. We make a decision about it. We recognize that pregnancy is a possibility, and we decide whether this is the right time for us to have a baby. We acknowledge that we are more than just potential (or actual) parents. One of the surest signs of youth—in any profession—is an unswerving adherence to literal interpretations. New teachers cling to the curriculum, whether or not the class is getting it. Young doctors focus on the clear x-ray, unable to see the patient in front of them writhing in pain. Parish priests preach the letter of the law, while their parishioners refuse to follow rules created without reference to the reality they know. But the rules aren’t just unrealistic. They are often irrelevant, based on incorrect or incomplete information.
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Fr. Landry goes on to say, “Contraception…make[s] pleasure the point of the act, and any time pleasure becomes the point rather than the fruit of the act, the other person becomes the means to that end. And we’re actually going to hurt the people we love.” At one level, this is insightful and nuanced. When he laments how frequently such objectification happens to women in sexual relationships, Fr. Landry sounds almost feminist. And he is right that a relationship that’s only about the pursuit of pleasure is demeaning and ultimately hurtful.
He is wrong, though, to assume that using contraception automatically makes “pleasure the point of the act.” This is how adolescents think. Teenagers dream of constantly available sex, uninhibited by any possibility of pregnancy. That priests would talk the same way about sex between a husband and wife who have chosen to use contraception reflects inexperience and adolescent projection.
Adults understand that good sex, with or without contraception, goes deeper than pleasure. It is complex and demanding. And pleasure isn’t necessarily a part of it. Any human encounter requiring honesty and surrender has the potential for both revelation and pain. The communication, healing, and strengthening that good sex ensures is foundational to a marriage. Pure pleasure the point of the act? What is Fr. Landry talking about?
Distrust of pleasure is one hallmark of the church’s teaching about sex. This is odd because, as Catholics, we also believe that “eye has not seen nor ear heard the wonders God has prepared for those who love Him.” But that aside, what is the church’s antidote to the dread prospect of people having too much fun in bed? Children.
The thing is, children are also a deep source of pleasure, joy, and fun. The bishops, while recognizing this truth, nonetheless focus on babies as natural results of the biological act, as consequences and responsibilities—not as persons who are sought after and gladly welcomed. (Indeed, people who seek too vigorously to have children are also criticized as trying to play God, to control what should be divinely ordained.)
I understand what is behind the bishops’ anxiety over designer parenthood—the demand for too much control over what kind of children we have. And I agree that sexual license is a serious threat to happiness, order, and the good of the human community.
But every human activity has the potential to become unbalanced. Having children mindlessly, year after year, as former generations of Catholics did, is just as harmful to the social good as the refusal to connect sex with pregnancy. Visit India, Fr. Landry. Talk with the women here who are treated purely as producers of sons.
To defend contraception within marriage is not to defend sexual license. Married couples who have pledged a lifetime of commitment to each other and their families have the right and the duty to make their own decisions about contraception. The church’s role is to help them arrive at the decision that is right for their lives. It is not to dictate one-size-fits-all rules that have no foundation in practical experience.
The church has made a spectacle of itself by promoting an immature version of sexuality that is missing the sinew of lived experience. It used to frighten people into submission. Now it simply makes them smile a little sadly. I’m a prolife Catholic who practiced only Natural Family Planning. But I’m smiling, too. Because I’m sad for my church.
One last comment to Ed -- about cafeteria Catholics. We all are they. Unless one is against: unjust war, unregulated capitalism, welfare cuts, capital punishment, harsh immigration policies, as well as abortion, birth control and gay marriage, for a few examples, and one is for wealth redistribution by progressive taxation, for another example, even if this might be called socialism or communism. Christ and the apostles certainly lived this way, as described in todays first reading, Acts 4:32-33. Maybe by orthodox you don't mean you're largely alligned with the Republican party, as the bishops seem to be these days. But if you are so alligned, then you are in the cafeteria with the rest of us, selecting your particular fare.
Jim Lein,
Abortion and war are not moral equivalents. War cqn be justified - abortion, artifical birth control, gay marriage never. You're mixing apples and oranges. Doctrine isn't a function of what anyone believes. Cafeteria Catholics pick and choose what doctrines they'll accept, actingas if they know better than God. Thank you for your contributions, especailly when you toss Republicans into the mix. I was holding my breath waiting for you to toss in those who suffer from prickly heat. You're a fine example of what is meant by a little knowledge can be dangerous.
Welcome to the club of cafeteria Catholics. You and I and the other persons commenting, we all pick and choose and at times act as though we know better than God. Let us pray for each other, that we recognize we are fellow pilgrims.
Michael Barberi,
Thanks for your prayers. Pray too for your professors of moral theology if they haven't signed on to Ex Corde Ecclesiae. Was Hitler's extermination of the Jews evil? He didn't seem to think so. By your "conscience is supreme" guidelines I guess he was OK. Same with slave traders, pedophiles, tax cheats, the guy getting it on with his neighbor's wife. They had no problem doing what they did. You seem to spend a lot of time inferring what I mean in my posts. You're batting pretty poorly, just so you know. First you say I'm a fundamentalist. My gut reaction is you can't possibly know what the word means just as Jim Lein can't know what a cafteria Catholic is if you judge by what he says. I'm no fundamentalist. After all, I don't believe in a 6-day creation, an ark, a woman made from a rib, a 900 year old Methuselah, while I do believe evolution rightly understood could account for our presence. So I ask you, pray tell, where's the fundamentalism? I'm not disparagaing Hans Kung or Charlie Curran. Hell, I might even enjoy a beer with them. One of my best friends was excommunicated for letting Abp Milingo "consecrate" him a bishop even though he was a married grandfather. I don't disparage him but i also don't pretend he's in good stead with the Church, if that even matters to him. Some moral theologians have a bit of the gnostic in them when it comes to, say, contraception. They believe that their studies place them in the air of a secret society that knows the real truths of the Faith, while the rest of us hoi polloi who make up the mindless sheep who blindly follow an old fool in Rome are decades behind the times. One time a moral theologian confided in me - hush hush - how most of the folks in the audience she was speaking to were out of the loop on the exceptions to the ban on artificial birth control. She assumed I was on her side. But once I said the magic words - Humanae Vitae - she turned on me like a cornered rat, saying I didn't have the qualifications even to talk to her. I laughed. Here's this angry broad who doesn't even know my name, has never met, yet who knows my qualifications. Must've been my ponytail and pierced ear.
One more comment re: what I meant by "fundamentalist" in this context: it is not biblical fundamentalism, but ecclesiastical findamentalism: a slavish, highly literal and extremely rigid view of the authority and "inerrancy" of Church authority, similar to what biblical findamentalists do with Scripture. No need to defend yourself again Ed Micca: you have already said that this is not true of you, but I believe that it is true, at least based on the comments you have made in this thread.
Janet,
Abortion is intrinsically evil. Does saying that mean I have a slavish, highly literal, extremely rigid view of the inerrancy of Church doctrine, or am I just telling it as it is? Far from making one a slave, the truth sets us free. I've never said the Church is inerrant in all her utterances. Most papal pronouncements don't carry doctrinally binding weight. I'm free to disagree in good conscience with much of what's said. Yet the Faith is more than an aggregate of well-reasoned, well-intentioned statements. There are truths that are independent of time, place, and circumstance which form the framework of our ticket to salvation. The meaning of these truths and our understanding of them is revealed and deepens over time, but the kernel of truth around which the revelation and understanding swirl never changes. I unapologetically accept this while at the same time struggling to live it. In consideration of you, I printed The Loss of Effective Authority: A Crisis of Trust and Credibility by Michael McCarthy. When I finish it I will share my thoughts which, perhaps, you might care to read. It's OK for us to disagree, not so to do so disagreeably. Ed
Janet:
Thank you for the artical "The Loss of Effective Authority: A Crisis of Trust and Credibility", by Michael McCarthy.
This essay captures all the relevant issues that have caused a crisis of trust and a crisis in truth that plagues Church Authority today. I would like to suggest, for a deeper and more comprehensive insight into this problem: "The Crisis of Authority in Catholic Modernity", by Michael Lacy and Frances Oakley.
McCarthy does a good job in highlighting and adequately explaining the important issues that have caused a divided church and a crisis of trust. I cannot do justice to the depth of McCarthy's expertise by listing a series of pithy causes or solutions to this crisis. However, some, but not all of them, are:
> Classicism versus Historical Consciousness
> Authoritarianism versus Collegiality
> The War on Moderism versus A Collaborative Teaching and Learning Church
> The Magisterium versus Appropriate Co-Responsibility with The People of God
> An Exaggerated Fear of Change versus Intellectual Openness and Exploration
> Male Celibate Patrimony versus Justice and Equality
> Absolute Moral Certainty versus Intellectual Humility
> Church Power and Authority versus the Word and Spirit of Christ
As McCarthy rightly pointed out, Catholics have not abandoned Christ and his gospel; they have lost faith in the governance of His Church. They have not lost faith in the Office of the Papacy, but have lost faith in the credibility of those who occupy the Papacy, and how papal responsiblities are envisioned and exercised. Catholics give respect to the papal teachings proclaimed as doctrine, but question unintelligible authoritative teachings as doctrine, and the demands for absolute obedience.
When it comes to issues of marriage and sexuality, not issues of faith per se, that are in profound tension with their reason, human experience and informed conscience, Catholics rely on the Holy Spirit who guides them to the good and the truth. Sincere disagreements with certain doctrines, is not cafeteria Catholicism. Despite authoritative pronouncements that call any disagreement with doctrine akin to heracy, if you disagree for good reasons in conscience, you can remain a faithful Catholic. Exaggerated examples of the primacy of conscience (e.g., Hitler thought his conscience was right) distort the truth of about the primary of an informed conscience, as defined in Vatican Council II.
In the vision of Vatican Council II, Catholics are awaiting internal reform and renewal, and a leader in the spirit of John XXIII.
Thanks again Janet for sharing with us this important article.
I am a little disappointed in the article and all of the discussions that have taken place to date.
The only discussion of the pill relates to contraception. Yet in fact, the original studies for the use of the pill were to help Porto Ricans have children. And as I recall, there was a Catholic Nun and Doctor involved in the early studies. It was designed to regulate the cycle for children not against them. It did not become a contraceptive issue until the studies moved to Boston.
The term hysterectomy was not used at all. There was one reference to sterile folks, who were open to have children. This is an interesting Church based phenomenon. I would love to see the statistical evidence that was the basis for the concept “open to have children” as being physically or theologically sound.
This is not true of hysterectomies. There are 600,000 hysterectomies performed each year in the United States. I would have a very hard time believing that all these operations were performed on Non Catholics., As far as I know the Church has developed a wall of silence concerning hysterectomies.. There will be no children with a hysterectomy. Is sex permissible, must be as it is a hysterectomy is not grounds of annulment.
The saddest comment of all involves the simple word family. You know, like just people. Oh, there was plenty of family planning, family life. My definition of family consists of parents and children. My wife was one of 20 births and I was an only child. When we got married I bought a Volkswagen bus for we planned to fill it. It was not to be. Early in the marriage my wife nearly died and she had to have a hysterectomy. I am sure you are not familiar with some of the rules of the Catholic Adoption Agencies in the 60 and 70’s. You could be turned down for adoption if you were sick, if you didn’t keep your house neat, or if you didn’t have a fence. The year s crept by and our marriage became a thing of convenience. It was clear that the Church was not going to do anything about it, except recommend prayer. We gave all that up to God’s will. But, our lives turned around when we were afforded the opportunity to have a “gray” adoption. And the change was immediate. We became a family and the Church had nothing to do with it., We have been married for 50 years and family still means more than just the two of us. We have Grandchildren now and they’ve give meaning to why we ever lived.
If family is only two people what is the point. Is economics really a basis for marriage? Maybe so, but if it is then that makes me very sad.
As you can see in all of this, the Church holds the position that they have all the answers that God has in store for us. I beg to differ, When it comes to sex the Clergy and the Hierarchy are way above their pay grade.
Dear John:
You posting about your family life was indeed touching and real. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We are all blessed to know that family, marrage and procreation is not merely philosophical and theological arguments, but the inner strivings of the agent to the good, the truth and happiness, using his or her will and practical reason, and appropriate right actions. This is simply the work of the Holy Spirit in us.
You touched on a most important issue when you mentioned that your wife nearly died and had to have a hysterectomy. There are millions of women who have had difficult birth deliveries with complications, whose physical tells them that another pregnacy will be life threatening. The Church tells these women that taking the pill or sterilization is immoral. They must either practice "risky NFP-PC" or celibacy. The hierarcy of values in these cases are turned upside down. The prudent and safest way to safe-guard one's life becomes morally irrelevant to the decision to practice risky PC or "imposed celibacy" in order to ensure that every marital act is open to procreation.
Other spouses have fertility problems. They can take fertility drugs to alter, manipulate and increase the procreative potention. Yet, they cannot take a drug to regulate their fertility to space children or to avoid more children for good reasons...if the drug temporarily suspends ovulation.
Many other spouses have fertility problems where drugs are not helpful. Yet they can bear children through in vitro fertilization; using the male seed and female egg of each spouse. In these cases, they are told this is immoral because the male seed must be deposited in the female virgina during sexual intercourse, even if procreation will be impossible. They must adopt children if they want them.
These are examples of how a Church teaching, Humane Vitae, becomes unreasonable and a form of stoic insensibliity in concrete cases of existential reality. The Church is stuck in its own distorted narrative about marriage and procreation. They claim that their teaching is God's procreative plan. Unfortunately, no one knows God's procreative plan and symbolism and speculation is a weak moral theory.
The Church's focus, and exaggerated fear, is the sin of the world. They do not see the good in the world. It is the Church versus the secular world, good versus evil, a war at all costs. The moral tradition becomes the truth without remainder, irreformable and definitive. They fear any change because this may diminish the power and authority of the magisterium. They forget that our understanding of truth is progressive; not issues of faith, but moral issues involving humanity, sexuality, ethics and marriage. One day they will wait up and it will take the courage and enlighted spirit of another John XXIII.
If deacons ever get the opportunity to vote in papal conclaves Jo Mc Gowan gets my vote. This is one of the best things I've read on marital sexuality and contraception in my lifetime and thats 70 plus years with 52 years of marriage.