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James K. Baxter Complete Prose Volume 2

Contraception and the Pope [1]

Contraception and the Pope [1]

Sir: It is refreshing to read an editorial as honest as the recent one about the encyclical Humanae Vitae. The fact that the view expressed is almost wholly negative – in answer to the purported negativism of Pope Paul – does not remove my respect for your editorial directness. But such an editorial asks obviously though implicitly for further comment from Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Permit me then to say why I, a Catholic, accept and even welcome the Pope’s directive:

(a) I am a convert to the Catholic Church. Therefore, as an adult, I examined closely the Church’s teaching on birth regulation as on a hundred other topics, and gave intellectual and moral assent to her doctrines. I grant that cradle Catholics may be in a different situation. They may never have made a free choice to go or stay.
(b) In your editorial you tend to assume that the practice of artificial contraception leads to marital joy and the forbidding of that practice leads to misery. From experience and observation I have formed the opinion that the elimination of potential fertility takes away one of the dimensions of meaning from the sexual act. Other possible dimensions of meaning are romantic love, pleasure, and a love whose object is compassionate and consolatory. The first is unstable and the third is as well expressed by darning a coat or making a cup of tea. I think that one of the factors leading to a spiritual claustrophobia in modern marriage is precisely the elimination of potential fertility by artificial contraception.
(c) Granted this opinion of mine, I have no difficulty in understanding and agreeing with Pope Paul’s statement. Yet belief is not brain-washing. I recognise that many of my fellow-Catholics honestly disagree and fail to understand it. I will defend their right to follow a conscience I believe to be erroneous. I will oppose any effort to make this particular issue a basic test of Catholic orthodoxy, since it is not strictly a matter of dogma.
(d) The Pope is arguing from natural law. The one primary natural law is that one should choose good and avoid evil. All other so-called natural laws are derived and secondary; and where the issue is as complex as that regarding page 627 artificial contraception a consensus of agreement can probably never be reached. In these circumstances a clear statement from the magisterium is vitally necessary. I know that Protestants do without the magisterium. But are we Catholics to be like unions appealing to the arbitration court, and accept rulings in our favour, but refuse to recognise the court when it rules against us? That would be to remove the meaning of the magisterium and eventually to become Protestants.
(e) In fact, among most Catholics, two authorities conflict – the magisterium and the consensus of opinion among educated people of their acquaintance. This second authority may be unconsciously regarded by them as infallible even while they argue against the likelihood of Humanae Vitae being an infallible statement. Conflicts of conscience are perhaps inevitable. A husband, for example, who agrees with the Pope’s ruling, may feel he has no right even to express an objection to the use of artificial contraception by his wife when he knows that her aim is physical or psychological self-preservation.
(f) The point the proponents of artificial contraception will always stress is that fertility is dangerous. We who accept the Pope’s ruling know this. He certainly knows it too. But the passion of fear or even the passion of pity are not adequate moral guides. One hopes that dangers can be reduced to an absolute minimum by the use of the rhythm method combined with a medical regularising of the menstrual cycle, by community help to mothers with large families, by the best possible care for mothers in childbirth, and by any other means that are licit.
(g) Mrs Gandhi is not a Catholic. Mao Tse Tung is not a Catholic. It is only in Latin America that the population explosion is likely to encounter the effects of the Pope’s ruling. I do not minimise those effects. But a New Zealand Catholic does not practise artificial contraception on account of any population explosion.
(h) The Church does not forbid family planning. She only forbids the deliberate and artificial elimination of the dimension of potential fertility from any given sexual act. And this applies implicitly to any acts among the unmarried also. It is the integrity of sexuality she is concerned about. And when has there been an age when sexuality has been more emptied of meaning than it has been in our own? I suggest that some of your readers might care to look again at Humanae Vitae with these considerations in mind.

1968 (536)