New documentation from a renowned moral theologian is shedding light
on a controversial moment in Catholic history – the 1963-66 commission
that considered the question of contraception prior to Paul VI's
encyclical “Humanae Vitae.”
“The idea of what happened with the commission has been shaped by
people who were pro-contraception.” said Germain Grisez, Professor
Emeritus of philosophy and moral theology at Mount St. Mary's College in
Maryland. “It's their account of what happened, that has been
circulated over the years.”
Now, Grisez is seeking to set the record straight, by releasing
documents that few in the Church have ever seen before.
They can be
viewed through his website, at http://twotlj.org/BCCommission.html.
According to Grisez, who assisted commission member Fr. John Ford in
his work, several misunderstandings about the commission date back to
1967 – the year before Pope Paul VI condemned artificial contraceptive
methods in his encyclical “Humanae Vitae.”
During that year, a number of commission documents containing
pro-contraception arguments were leaked to the public and the press.
The
move led to the popular misconception of the Pope “overruling” a
commission, although the commission had no authority to make decisions.
Those who supported the traditional teaching, like Fr. Ford, could
have responded in kind with their own document leaks. But they chose not
to do so at the time, considering themselves bound to keep the
commission's work private and wait for the Pope to speak
authoritatively.
“The people who weren't supportive of a change in Church teaching,
believed that their knowledge of what the commission had done was
confidential,” Grisez explained. “They didn't go around talking about
it.”
According to Grisez, this one-sided perspective on the commission's
work made it appear that Pope Paul had simply disregarded the majority
report.
But the new documents shows that the Pope took both sides of the
issue seriously, and gave advocates of artificial contraception every
chance to make their case.
It also shows how the commission's secretary
general, Fr. Henri de Riedmatten, managed to exert a strong influence in
favor of contraception, despite the opposing position of commission
president Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani.
Grisez noted that the Pope, rather than ignoring the
pro-contraception arguments, was legitimately interested in considering
the questions raised by new methods.
“He was perfectly happy to have a lot of people on the commission who
thought that change was possible. He wanted to see what kind of case
they could make for that view.”
But the Pope never intended to hand over his teaching authority to
the commission.
“He was not at all imagining that he could delegate to a
committee, the power to decide what the Church's teaching is going to
be,” Grisez said.
Some proponents of a change in teaching believed that Pope Pius XI's
encyclical “Casti Connubii,” which condemned artificial birth control in
1930, had not conclusively settled the kinds of questions raised by new
methods of hormonal contraception.
They initially argued that the
contraceptive pill was different from older methods, and could be
accepted without contradicting prior teaching.
Pope Paul encouraged the commission to pursue this line of inquiry –
not expecting that the commission's work, after being leaked to the
public, would be set on the same plane as his judgment.
“He never intended the commission to be a public body, or that its
study should be publicized in print,” Grisez emphasized. “He thought
they were going to study, and make their presentation to him, so he
would understand it and think the matter through.”
This spirit of inquiry, however, had consequences he did not intend.
“When the documents were leaked in 1967, Paul VI was extremely upset
about it. He sent a letter to all the bishops and cardinals who were on
the commission, about the documents. It wasn't what he had in mind at
all.”
In the end, the majority of commission members actually lost interest
in attempting to argue that contraceptive pills could be squared with
“Casti Connubii.”
Instead, they simply advocated the acceptance of
contraception, without attempting to reconcile this prospect with the
previous teaching of the Church.
“Almost nobody, in the end, was arguing that the pill was anything
different,” Grisez recalled.
“In the commission documents, you wouldn't
find much of a case anywhere for that – although that was the starting
point for the whole thing.”
Pope Paul VI considered their work, but grew more convinced than ever
that the majority position was not correct.
“He became absolutely
clear, in his own mind, that the pill was wrong. That led to the
declaration in 'Humanae Vitae.'”
But in the public realm, the groundwork had already been laid for the
disastrous reception of “Humanae Vitae” in 1968, through the leaking of
the majority report that supported contraception.
Grisez hopes the new documentation he is providing might undo some of
that damage, and help many people open their minds to the Church's
teaching on sexuality.
“It would help the Church now, if people had a more sound notion of
what did happen – an understanding of Paul VI's actual mentality,
wanting to study the question without intending to hand over his
authority.”
“If that were better understood,” he noted, “I think a lot of the resentment surrounding 'Humanae Vitae' could be dissolved.”