Janet Smith on Pope's interview - Are We Obsessed?

In First Things 

A few passages from Pope Francis’ famous interview published in America have unsettled some people for many reasons. My reason for being unsettled is that it would not be a complete distortion to say that I have been “obsessed” with the issues of abortion, contraception, and homosexuality for nearly all of my professional life. I prefer the terms “dedicated” or “committed,” of course, but whatever word is appropriate, I have long thought that helping people understand why abortion, contraception, and homosexual acts are not in accord with God’s plans for human happiness is a very effective way of drawing people closer to the Lord and to the Church, and thus, more or less, most of my adult life, I have been evangelizing in this way. 

Enough about me. Let me talk about the legions of pro-lifers who run pregnancy help centers (which outnumber abortion clinics), of those who host pro-life websites and give pro-life talks, of those who try to get pro-life politicians elected, of those who do the hard work of trying to find jobs, housing, and other kinds of support for single mothers, of those who provide healing ministries to women who have had abortions, such as Rachel Weeping. Let me talk about teachers of Natural Family Planning and the Theology of the Body and abstinence educators. Let me talk about those who work for and promote Courage, a compassionate ministry to those who experience same sex attraction and about those who against strangely strong odds make the case against same sex “marriages.” Let me talk about those who use Facebook, blogs, and comments on blogs to try to dialogue with those who reject and even despise Church teaching and those who defend it.

I know these people and most of them radiate the love for Christ and the Church that the Holy Father desires. They sacrifice their time, talent, and energy because they love Christ and those who hate Christ and those who don’t know Christ. Undoubtedly some pro-lifers and some opponents of contraception and some who crusade against the widespread acceptance of homosexuality are angry people ready to condemn others as unredeemable sinners, but I suspect they are few and far between in the US at least. Although I have seen rare postings on the internet, written by putative Christians that are very unchristian, I have not met any such individuals in “real life.”

In fact, I don’t think the Holy Father was speaking about my friends, when he states:

We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context.

My friends definitely talk about these issues “in context,” in fact in many contexts. Again, their reason for boldly and sacrificially and ardently addressing these issues is precisely because they love Christ and the Church and want others to do so. They are trying to save people, to save them from ignorance about Church teaching, to save them from serious sin, to save them from missing out on the great joys of accepting Christ as their savior and the Church as their home. And—praise God—sometimes they succeed. In fact, my own reversion to the Church was greatly facilitated by an anti-Catholic professor who patiently argued with students that truth exists. It pained him that many of his students converted to Catholicism, once they came to accept that truth exists, and even moral truths that require most students to change their behavior radically.

Pope Francis is right that in some contexts proclaiming the Gospel is a powerful aid to conversion to moral goodness. For instance, many of those who do counseling outside of abortion clinics approach the women entering and say: “I am here to help you realize that God loves you and, if you are pregnant, he loves the child you are carrying. He trusts you to be the loving mother your child needs. I am here to help you find whatever you need to help you be that loving mother. There is nothing you have done that God won’t forgive.” That is a powerful and effective approach. It can often be costly to deliver what is needed but I know pro-lifers who definitely go the extra mile.

He also said: “The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently.” Again, I don’t think this statement refers to my friends since there is nothing “disjointed” about the way they present doctrines nor do they “impose” them “insistently.” Rather, they study hard to learn the deep anthropological truths that John Paul II labored so tirelessly to teach that justify the Church’s teaching. They make the call to conscience that John Paul II makes: man’s dignity resides in his ability to know the truth and to live consciously and freely in accord with it. They call people to live in accord with the natural greatness that God gave them. They do not make threats of damnation or make calls for blind obedience; they lay out the evidence, scientific, sociological, psychological, theological and philosophical. There is no imposing; there is, rather, intelligent instruction and persuasion.

I also began to realize that the Holy Father was not speaking of the same context in which I live and labor when he said:

I say this also thinking about the preaching and content of our preaching. A beautiful homily, a genuine sermon must begin with the first proclamation, with the proclamation of salvation. There is nothing more solid, deep and sure than this proclamation.

While I understand that preaching the love of Christ is central to Christianity, and while, of course, I am delighted that Pope Francis, as Benedict and John Paul II and a host of popes before him, have preached this relentlessly, I am a bit surprised that Pope Francis thinks an effective way to promote Christianity would be to enthusiastically teach that Christ came to save us. He seems to think that many people are hesitant to embrace Christianity or Catholicism because they believe that they are beyond redemption and that the Church is a judgmental, intolerant institution that won’t accept them. Now, it may be that many people think the Church is judgmental and intolerant, but my impression is that most people do not think they are sinners beyond redemption. In fact, I think most people think they are not sinners and not in need of redemption. They do not think having abortions, using contraception, using pornography, fornicating, masturbating, or engaging in homosexual acts are immoral actions. They think what they are doing is fine and they are fine just as they are.

I am not suggesting that we should be shouting from the rooftops that these are serious sins and that those who commit them knowingly and freely and who don’t repent of them will face an unpleasant eternity, to say the least. That is the truth, of course, but it is not the truth that the crusaders I know, speak. Rather, as I stated, they give reasons for the teachings; rational, persuasive, appealing reasons.

The Holy Father continues his remarks about homilies and says:

Then [after preaching salvation] you have to do catechesis. Then you can draw even a moral consequence. But the proclamation of the saving love of God comes before moral and religious imperatives. Today sometimes it seems that the opposite order is prevailing. The homily is the touchstone to measure the pastor’s proximity and ability to meet his people, because those who preach must recognize the heart of their community and must be able to see where the desire for God is lively and ardent. The message of the Gospel, therefore, is not to be reduced to some aspects that, although relevant, on their own do not show the heart of the message of Jesus Christ.

Pope Francis finds the homily a proper place to teach moral truths but thinks priests have gotten the order wrong. Where is he hearing these homilies that hammer on moral truths at the expense of preaching the gospel? For some time now I have been trying to help seminarians and priests preach on the difficult moral truths. One reason it is we struggle is that virtually none of us have heard it done! We have heard homilies on abortion—perhaps at most once a year—while homilies on contraception and homosexual acts are so rare as to cause astonishment and generally earn the pastor an influx of hate mail.

Some people have proposed that the Holy Father is speaking out of his experience of a Latin American culture. I don’t know if priests in Latin America incessantly give moralistic homilies without reference to the good news of Christ, but clearly that is the scenario that Pope Francis has in mind. More and more priests in the US are realizing that their parishioners need to hear the truth about morality proclaimed boldly and clearly. The seminarians and I are making every effort to tie moral teachings to the Gospel. It is not hard to do since many passages such as “keep my commandments” lend themselves to a wide range of issues. But displaying the requisite sensitivity is a challenge. I require seminarians always to mention that the fact that so many commit serious sexual sins can be explained by the pernicious influence of our culture, particularly the influence of the entertainment world, but increasingly by the policies of our government as well. I require the seminarians to invite people to confession to experience the liberating and healing power of the sacrament.

In fact, Pope Francis’ own daily homilies that focus on greed, gossip, and laziness, for instance, completely won my heart. I saw that he realized that Catholics need to be reminded daily to let their faith influence every action of our lives—and he regularly invites people to confession. He often preaches about the reality of the devil. I wonder if he knows that American Catholics are as likely to use contraception and view pornography as they are to be greedy and to gossip. The devil has us in his grip there. Mention of those sins, too, need to be a regular part of homilies.

This is not to say that neither my friends nor I have anything to learn from what the Holy Father has said. While I said above that the people I am speaking of “radiate the love of Christ,” I must admit, and not slowly, that such is not always true. We get angry, impatient, dismissive, and self-righteous at times. We are not saints yet, just saints in the making. It is undoubtedly true that some of us love truth more than we love those we serve. That is not a Christian attitude. We need to truly approach each of those we attempt to serve with love for them, with a humble understanding that our approach is not always the best and most compassionate, and with the knowledge that God works patiently with each of us and that we must be patient too.

As Dave Sloan—a friend who is one of the best workers in the vineyard—stated in a post on Facebook: “People do not need to be convinced that they are lost, and they do not need to be convinced that they are wounded. All that is needed is for them to believe that they are known at a deep level and they are loved at a deep level. When they are convinced of these things they are ready enough to reveal their wounds and their sense of being lost. This is messy, and painfully difficult, and it is no surprise that those in the church who have grown comfortable hiding behind a didactic wall are howling that Pope Francis is tearing down that wall.” While I have my quibbles with what the Holy Father said, I think Dave captures the most important element of what he said. Those of us who love didactic certainty need to examine ourselves to strive constantly to ensure that our actions are motivated by love.

Why Are the Media Fixated on Condoms? An Appeal to Focus on Negatives of Reckless Sexuality - Janet E. Smith

by Janet E. Smith

DETROIT, Michigan, DEC. 1, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Most people remember their grandmothers at some point telling them that pointing a finger at someone means that three fingers are pointing back at you. The media are obsessed with the issue of the Catholic Church and condoms because they seem to believe that condoms are the solution to preventing the transmission of the HIV. Might it be time they began to think about other organizations, such as themselves, that might bear some responsibility?

Who can deny that if people were living by the Church's teaching on sexuality, if people were having only married heterosexual sex, there would be no problem with the HIV (and a host of other problems)? Certainly, in this fallen world, that is not going to happen everywhere. But why doesn't it happen more often? Why does it seem that so many people think sex outside of marriage and homosexual sex is perfectly acceptable? That people should be allowed to have whatever kind of sex they want to have? Benedict XVI calls this the "banalization of sexuality."

I have been teaching on sexuality for many decades. When I started, nearly three decades ago, even though promiscuity was in full swing even then, I could generally count on young people agreeing with me that sexual intercourse was meant to be an expression of love. In fact, "making love" was a euphemism for "having sex," but who says that anymore? When I would speak about "sex" they would naturally think of an act performed by spouses. Some argued that if you were in love and intending to get married, it could be moral to have sex before marriage. Even so, there was also fairly widespread agreement, that if you weren't ready for babies, you weren't ready for sex. Few were arguing that it was moral to have any kind of sex.

How things have changed since then! Now, when I speak of "sex" people think of a profoundly pleasurable sexual act that has no connection to love, commitment or babies. Young people are a bit surprised when I maintain there is a natural connection between sex, love, commitment and babies.

Why has this change come about? Well, as I have argued incessantly for years, the introduction of the contraceptive pill changed everything. Suddenly people thought removing the baby making power of the sexual act meant they were free to engage in sex without a second thought about any new life that might be conceived. And then we all went wild. As a result, 41% of babies are now born out of wedlock; one of four pregnancies is aborted; and nearly 70% of all children in the United States grow up in households affected by divorce or unwed pregnancy. Worldwide, millions of people are dying of the HIV. And the media continue to fixate on condoms as a solution to all these problems?

TV morality

I blame the media, and to a great extent, the entertainment world. It is a rare parent who doesn't find the media to be tremendous threats to forming their children well, especially when it comes to sexual morality. All of us are bombarded daily with seductive sexual imagery and the glorification of sexual immorality, from advertisements to nearly every TV show and any nonanimated film. Some films do show the terrible life consequences of irresponsible sexuality, but most entertainment presents irresponsible sexuality as normative and falsifies the all-too-common consequences.

Why don't reporters harass script writers and producers and others responsible for what appears in the media, instead of further harassing the Holy Father? Why don't they ask questions such as, "Aren't you concerned that the way you portray casual sex as exhilarating and satisfying will lead young people to engage in sex recklessly?" "Don't you feel responsible to some extent for all the unwed pregnancies, abortions, sexually transmitted infections, broken hearts and broken lives?" This would focus our public debate on how those who create our cultural icons are tearing down family values brick by vital brick.

There is also a dearth of reporting about the consequences of unwed pregnancy for the people involved, for the economy and the culture. There is a lack of reporting about the reality of the homosexual lifestyle; the number of lifetime partners, of anonymous sex, of shortened lifespans. Without full information, people can't make good choices.

If any food or drug led to the amount of disease, poverty, and general human unhappiness that is caused by reckless sexuality, there would be a full-fledged media campaign attempting to alert people to the danger. Is global warming a worse danger than reckless sexuality, which may be said to create an imbalance in our personal and culture moral "ecosystem"? Is overeating a worse danger than reckless sexuality, resulting as it does in a warped and cynical self-image? Is lack of recycling or oil spills worse than reckless sexuality, which trains us to disrespect and ignore our bodily dignity?

Why can't the media see what is in truth one of the worse threats to human happiness that lurks right under our noses? Why do they continue to fixate on the Pope and condoms, when the world needs to hear about sexual responsibility? Why?

* * *

Janet E. Smith is the Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan. She is the author of "Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later" and "The Right to Privacy," and editor of "Why Humanae Vitae Was Right: A Reader."

Janet E. Smith on Benedict XVI and Condoms

DETROIT, NOV. 21, 2010 (Zenit.org).- A book-length interview with Benedict XVI, due to be released on Tuesday, is already causing controversy in the public spotlight due to the Pope's comments on the use of condoms.

Some quotes from the book, "Light of the World" (Ignatius Press), were published ahead of the release date, prompting media opinions and a statement of clarification by Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office.

Janet Smith, a consultor to the Pontifical Council on the Family who holds the Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, and has published extensively on the topics of sexuality and bioethics, explained in this interview the source of the controversy and what the Pope is really saying.

She noted that in the book (p.119), to the charge that "It is madness to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms," Pope Benedict replied (This paragraph is at the end of an extended answer on the help the Church is giving the AIDS victims and the need to fight the banalization of sexuality.):

"There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality."

The interviewer asked the Pontiff, "Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?"

The Holy Father replied, "She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality."

Smith explains in the following interview, which she sent to ZENIT, how Benedict XVI was advocating conversion, not condoms, in the striving for moral behavior.

Q: What is Pope Benedict saying?

Smith: We must note that the example that Pope Benedict gives for the use of a condom is a male prostitute; thus, it is reasonable to assume that he is referring to a male prostitute engaged in homosexual acts.

The Holy Father is simply observing that for some homosexual prostitutes the use of a condom may indicate an awakening of a moral sense; an awakening that sexual pleasure is not the highest value, but that we must take care that we harm no one with our choices.

He is not speaking to the morality of the use of a condom, but to something that may be true about the psychological state of those who use them. If such individuals are using condoms to avoid harming another, they may eventually realize that sexual acts between members of the same sex are inherently harmful since they are not in accord with human nature.

The Holy Father does not in any way think the use of condoms is a part of the solution to reducing the risk of AIDs. As he explicitly states, the true solution involves "humanizing sexuality."

Anyone having sex that threatens to transmit HIV needs to grow in moral discernment. This is why Benedict focused on a "first step" in moral growth.

The Church is always going to be focused on moving people away from immoral acts towards love of Jesus, virtue, and holiness. We can say that the Holy Father clearly did not want to make a point about condoms, but wants to talk about growth in a moral sense, which should be a growth towards Jesus.

Q: So is the Holy Father saying it is morally good for male prostitutes to use condoms?

Smith: The Holy Father is not articulating a teaching of the Church about whether or not the use of a condom reduces the amount of evil in a homosexual sexual act that threatens to transmit HIV.

The Church has no formal teaching about how to reduce the evil of intrinsically immoral action. We must note that what is intrinsically wrong in a homosexual sexual act in which a condom is used is not the moral wrong of contraception but the homosexual act itself.

In the case of homosexual sexual activity, a condom does not act as a contraceptive; it is not possible for homosexuals to contracept since their sexual activity has no procreative power that can be thwarted.

But the Holy Father is not making a point about whether the use of a condom is contraceptive or even whether it reduces the evil of a homosexual sexual act; again, he is speaking about the psychological state of some who might use condoms. The intention behind the use of the condom (the desire not to harm another) may indicate some growth in a sense of moral responsibility.

In "Familiaris Consortio (On the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World)," John Paul II spoke of the need for conversion, which often proceeds by gradual steps:

"To the injustice originating from sin ... we must all set ourselves in opposition through a conversion of mind and heart, following Christ Crucified by denying our own selfishness: such a conversion cannot fail to have a beneficial and renewing influence even on the structures of society.

"What is needed is a continuous, permanent conversion which, while requiring an interior detachment from every evil and an adherence to good in its fullness, is brought about concretely in steps which lead us ever forward. Thus a dynamic process develops, one which advances gradually with the progressive integration of the gifts of God and the demands of His definitive and absolute love in the entire personal and social life of man. (9)"

Christ himself, of course, called for a turning away from sin. That is what the Holy Father is advocating here; not a turn towards condoms. Conversion, not condoms!

Q: Would it be proper to conclude that the Holy Father would support the distribution of condoms to male prostitutes?

Smith: Nothing he says here indicates that he would. Public programs of distribution of condoms run the risk of conveying approval for homosexual sexual acts.

The task of the Church is to call individuals to conversion and to moral behavior; it is to help them understand the meaning and purpose of sexuality and to help them come to know Christ, who will provide the healing and graces that enable us to live in accord with the meaning and purpose of sexuality.

Q: Is Pope Benedict indicating that heterosexuals who have HIV could reduce the wrongness of their acts by using condoms?

Smith: No. In his second answer he says that the Church does not find condoms to be a "real or moral solution." That means the Church does not find condoms either to be moral or an effective way of fighting the transmission of HIV. As the Holy Father indicates in his fuller answer, the most effective portion of programs designed to reduce the transmission of HIV are calls to abstinence and fidelity.

The Holy Father, again, is saying that the intention to reduce the transmission of any infection is a "first step" in a movement towards a more human way of living sexuality. That more human way would be to do nothing that threatens to harm one's sexual partner, who should be one's beloved spouse. For an individual with HIV to have sexual intercourse with or without a condom is to risk transmitting a lethal disease.

An analogy: If someone was going to rob a bank and was determined to use a gun, it would better for that person to use a gun that had no bullets in it. It would reduce the likelihood of fatal injuries. But it is not the task of the Church to instruct potential bank robbers how to rob banks more safely and certainly not the task of the Church to support programs of providing potential bank robbers with guns that could not use bullets.

Nonetheless, the intent of a bank robber to rob a bank in a way that is safer for the employees and customers of the bank may indicate an element of moral responsibility that could be a step towards eventual understanding of the immorality of bank robbing.

Uncovering a string of lies about the birth control Pill

The science is unequivocal. Fifty years after the FDA approved the pill, chemical contraception is bad for women, couples, society and the environment

By Janet E. Smith

This year we “celebrate” the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill, or “the pill.”

For the 40th anniversary of the pill, PBS produced a thorough retrospective on its history. The material is still on the PBS website and is an invaluable resource for those interested in this subject.

The story PBS tells is fascinating and, without meaning to denigrate PBS, the broadcaster tells the history of the pill in a surprisingly honest way — surprising not only because of PBS’ usual biases, but also because the pill is a subject that involves a great deal of dishonesty. PBS is even honest about the dishonesty and even simple foolishness that surrounds the pill. For instance, when it reports on early efforts to get the pharmaceutical companies — including Searle, which eventually became the first company to receive FDA approval to sell birth control pill — to develop a chemical contraceptive, PBS notes:

“Beyond the legal and religious complications, Searle executives just didn’t believe there would be a huge market for an oral contraceptive. The men at Searle found it inconceivable that any woman would consider taking pills every single day just for contraception. The prevailing wisdom was that no healthy woman would ever willingly take a drug that neither treated nor prevented disease.”

Deceptive drug trial

Sadly they were oh so wrong. Women have proven wretchedly willing to “take a drug that neither treated nor prevented disease” and, indeed, which has been plausibly identified as a cause of lethal diseases.

PBS also noted that some of the early research that was done circumvented laws against contraception by purporting to do research to help women with problems with infertility. Not only were some of the trials illegal, some of them involved giving women in psychiatric hospitals drugs without their knowledge or consent.

Deception was even written into the pill; since the pill creates a pseudo-pregnancy, women on the pill would not be menstruating. Researchers, however, devised the pill so that women would experience pseudo menstruation each month. This was done so that the pill might seem more “natural” and thus perhaps make it more acceptable to the Catholic Church.

Researchers chose Puerto Rico as a place to test the pill because they reasoned if they could get a poor Catholic country to accept contraception, it would be an easy sell elsewhere.

The fact that three women died during the course of the trials did not provoke researchers to examine the risks of taking the pill.

In fact, contraceptives are regularly tested or used without proper testing in Third World countries. Another kind of pill, Quinacrine, has the same sordid history. Quinacrine, a drug available in pellet form, was used for some time in Third World countries to sterilize women. It works by burning surfaces of the fallopian tube and uterus, thereby closing off the fallopian tubes. Huge problems arose with the practice, however. For instance, many of the lesions created by the burning became infected. Many women died of sepsis from infected wounds before the World Health Organization made sterilizers cease the practice.

Health dangers

The disturbing amount of duplicity and falsehood surrounding contraception continues to this day. Neither pharmaceutical companies nor physicians have been honest about the medical dangers of chemical contraceptives. The pill launched a whole set of chemical contraceptives, including Depo Provera, Ortho Evra, also known as the Patch, and Norplant. More and more studies (see the April 2009 study by Jessica Dolle of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center) are linking contraception with increased incidences of some forms of cancer.

The transcript of the PBS documentary indicates physicians recognized this possible connection from the beginning, but, from the start, this information has been suppressed. Why? Because pharmaceuticals make billions each year from chemical contraceptives: An honest account of the dangers would result in huge financial losses. Moreover, most of the research done on the pill is financed by pharmaceuticals. That just might call into question the reliability of the studies.

Occasionally, a study will appear that purports to show that the pill actually reduces the incidence of some forms of cancer. At best these studies show only a correlation between taking the pill and reduction of risk of disease. For instance, a study might take a group of women who take the pill and a group who don’t and compare the mortality rate between them. If the study shows that more takers of the pill lived longer, researchers jump to the conclusion that taking the pill is what prolonged the contraceptors’ lives.

That is a unwarranted leap of logic; there may be many other significant differences between the two groups that could account for the difference in mortality. What the studies definitely have not done is shown why the pill might prolong life. I suspect that will be impossible to do. More reliable logic is on the side of those who suspect a link between contraception and disease, since the chemical contraceptives involve prolonged ingestion of steroids. Many of those taking the pill are young women whose breasts are not fully developed; their breasts are particularly susceptible to predatory cell growth.

Informed risk?

Cancer is not the only lethal side effect of the pill and other chemical contraceptives. The Patch, which was approved by the FDA in 2001 and went on sale the following year, has proved to have many lethal side effects. Johnson and Johnson has paid out millions of damages to women and to the families of women who have experienced sometimes fatal heart attacks and strokes. The fact that the usage of the patch has dropped by nearly two-thirds indicates that at least some doctors have been informed of the risks.

Any other drug that has been linked with as many deaths and risks of lethal diseases would likely have been taken off the market. Some have observed the pharmaceutical companies may be as liable to class action suits as were the tobacco companies.

Certainly too few people know that the chemical contraceptives can have an abortifacient effect — that is, they work by causing the endometrium to be insufficiently friendly to an embryonic human being. Women who use chemical contraceptives may nonetheless conceive. If a woman forgets to take the pill or takes the pill at a different time of the day than usual, or is taking other medication that might interfere with the working of the pill, she may ovulate and conceive a child. As the new little human being tries to implant in his or her mother’s uterus, he or she may find the atmosphere of the womb inhospitable. Women who use the pill may regularly be spontaneously aborting a very small baby.

No woman knows how the pill or any of the chemical contraceptives is working in her body: Are they preventing ovulation, conception or implantation? Brian Gail’s terrific novel, “Fatherless” (One More Soul, $14.95), provides a gripping narrative, all too likely close to fact, of the suppression by pharmaceuticals of the truth of the abortifacient power of the pill.

Present vs. future

That the Father of Lies should be using lies and subterfuge to promote contraception should not be surprising. As Pope John Paul II noted in his 1981 apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio (on the role of the Christian family), contraceptive sex is itself a lie. It falsifies the relationship of spouses. When spouses are engaging in sexual intercourse, their acts, by their very nature, are ordained to expressing a lifetime commitment to each other, to expressing love, the desire to share their entire lives with each other, their desire to give of themselves to each other in a way in which they give themselves to no other.

Contracepted acts simply cannot express such meanings. Contracepted acts of sexual intercourse are inher-ently ephemeral; they have no ordination to the future. They express simply the desire of the partners to share a great pleasure.

Noncontracepted acts of sexual intercourse retain the meaning of a profound orientation toward the future — that is, the language of the body, the meaning of a noncontracepted act of sexual intercourse, says, “I acknowledge and accept the beauty of the procreative meaning of this act. If you and I were to become parents with each other, the commitment entailed in parenthood is one I welcome with you; I want a lifetime exclusive relationship with you.”

Lies lead to more lies. Certainly contraception is damaging to the marital relationship since it belies the nature of the gift. It is also falsifies male/female relationships prior to marriage.

Misplaced attraction

First, consider the physical effect of the chemical contraceptives on male/female relationships. More and more studies show that the use of contraceptives muddles the “chemical” attraction between males and females. Since chemical contraceptives put women in a state of “pseudo-pregnancy,” women using the chemical contraceptives have a bizarre chemical makeup — they do not have the hormonal makeup of women with natural fertility nor the hormonal makeup of truly pregnant women.

Studies show that women taking the pill are attracted to less masculine men, and when they go off the pill they often find they are not as attracted to the man they chose when they were on the pill. Men are more attracted to women who have natural fertility cycles. One study showed that they find average-looking women who are fertile more attractive than supermodels. So, chemical contraceptives falsify the attraction between men and women.

The effectiveness rate of contraceptives is misrepresented. Fifty percent of the pregnancies in the United States are unintended, and 50 percent of women who have those unwanted pregnancies were using a contraceptive when they got pregnant. More than 50 percent of women having abortions say they were using a contraceptive when they got pregnant. Within the first year that they use contraception, 17 percent of unmarried, cohabiting women will experience contraceptive failure.

The lying that goes on in any sexual relationship not bound up with marriage is also destructive, both of the relationships and of the souls of those participating in such relationships. Dawn Eden, in her book “The Thrill of the Chaste,” vividly portrays the amount of deception it takes to be promiscuous — to pretend you are more interested in your potential prey than you actually are and after intimate relations to maintain a conversation with someone you barely know. Most everyone who is cohabiting is lying to someone — to a grandmother or co-worker, for instance. It is not beneficial for the future of relationships that individuals discover themselves and their partners to be effective liars.

Connecting the dots

The human and social devastation wrought by the pill and companions cannot be overstated. It is not difficult to connect the dots between contraception, fornication, promiscuity, cohabitation and divorce. The amount of sex outside of marriage and the incidence of cohabitation has increased wildly since the pill was invented. So, too, have unwed pregnancy, abortion, divorce, poverty and unhappiness. Books like Lionel Tiger’s “The Decline of Males” and Jennifer Roback Morse’s “Smart Sex” provide statistical data to demonstrate what logic and common sense should easily be able to link. In his article “Bitter pill” (in the May issue of First Things), economist Tim Reichert uses the methodology of economics to show the use of contraception has led to a measurable decline in the happiness of females. As a result of our sexually out-of-control culture, we have an abysmally unhappy and wounded populace. Certainly the men and women in and out of sexual relationships, carrying and sharing incurable sexually transmitted infections, suffering heartbreak and desolation, and enduring abortions are dreadfully wounded by their sexual behavior.

Yet it is arguably children who suffer the most; those who are aborted never see the light of day. Thirty-seven percent of babies are now born out of wedlock, and nearly 70 percent of American children will grow up in single-parent households or households fractured by divorce. Why is it so hard for the world to see, that out-of-control sexuality is the cause of more troubles in our culture than any thing else?

I keep hoping someone will do a study of the carbon footprint of contraceptives. Production costs are considerable, as is the cost for packaging and distributing and disposing of contraceptives. The estrogens, in particular in some forms of the pill, are having serious negative effects on the environment. Well-known are the reports of a serious disproportion between male and female fish when a water supply has too much estrogen in it. And what other effects might there be of excess estrogen in the environment? Some have conjectured that premature puberty in young girls and the increase in infertility among males may be traceable to excess estrogen in the water supply, or perhaps even in their mother’s systems as they were gestated.

For my part, I believe all those who use natural family planning should get a tax credit for environmentally responsible behavior.

Conflicts within Church

Sadly, even the response to the pill within the Church is marked by underhandedness and coercion. Someone on the commission set up to advise Pope Paul VI on the question of “birth regulation,” leaked confidential documents to the press to put pressure on him to support contraception. Such was a serious betrayal of trust.

Cardinal James F. Stafford tells of a clandestine meeting of the priests in Baltimore wherein the priests were browbeaten into signing a petition against Pope Paul’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae (“Of Human Life”), and only he refused. None of the signatories had read the document. That is simply dishonest.

There are, however, many good signs. The studies showing the various dangers of the pill are getting more respect. For instance, the fact that Dr. Louise Brinton of the National Cancer Institute now acknowledges a link between contraception and cancer is a step forward. Within the Church, we find evidence of a renewed zeal on the part of the bishops to defend the Church’s teaching on sexuality. For instance, the fact that the U.S. bishops wrote a letter on “Marriage and the Gift of Life” in 2006, and issued another beautiful statement on marriage in 2009, “Marriage: Love and Life in the Divine Plan,” indicates they have recognized the need for marriage to be bolstered. Their “For Your Marriage” website is a gold mine of resources for the engaged and married and those who work with both groups.

Catholics still have work cut out for them. Nearly all Catholics have used contraceptives, and the vast majority still think the Church should cease teaching that contraception is intrinsically wrong. A wide majority of Catholics have sex before marriage, and they seem to have abortions and to divorce at pretty much the same rate as the rest of the population. The Church has a teaching that is beautiful and that will save women from much of the grief that is facilitated by the chemical contraceptives.

Rather than “celebrating” the 50th anniversary, our culture should take an honest look at what the pill (and its cousins) have done to our culture. It may come to see that the Church, rather than being retrograde and an obstacle to progress, is one of the few voices of sanity in a culture gone mad.

Claiming God's Power

When, through contraception, married couples remove from the exercise of their conjugal sexuality its potential procreative capacity, they claim a power which belongs solely to God: the power to decide in a final analysis the coming into existence of a human person. They assume the qualification of not being cooperators in God’s creative power, but the ultimate depositaries of the source of human life. In this perspective, contraception is to be judged objectively so profoundly unlawful, as never to be, for any reason, justified. To think or to say the contrary is equal to maintaining that in human life, situations may arise in which it is lawful not to recognize God as God.”

— Pope John Paul II, 1983

Love, Not Drugs

In a culture subjected to the prevalence of “having” over “being,” human life risks losing its value. If the practice of sexuality becomes a drug that seeks to enslave one’s partner to one’s own desires and interests, without respecting the cycle of the beloved, then what must be defended is no longer solely the true concept of love but in the first place the dignity of the person. As believers, we could never let the domination of technology invalidate the quality of love and the sacredness of life....

The teaching expressed by the encyclical Humanae Vitae is not easy. Yet it conforms with the fundamental structure through which life has always been transmitted since the world’s creation, with respect for nature and in conformity with its needs. Concern for human life and safeguarding the person’s dignity require us not to leave anything untried so that all may be involved in the genuine truth of responsible conjugal love in full adherence to the law engraved on the heart of every person.

— Pope Benedict XVI, in a May 10, 2008, speech