This is the second half of Part Four in a six-part series. Click on Part One, Part Two or Part Three for previous columns. The first half of this essay appeared yesterday.
Pope John Paul II elaborates beautifully on Humanae Vitae in the The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World (Familiaris Consortio) and his lectures on the “theology of the body.” Husband and wife find themselves wrapped up in a “great mystery” (Eph 5:26), one authored by God and given a structure, or grammar, based in truth and “objective moral norms.”(4) In sexual union, the spouses are “called to express that mysterious language of their bodies in all the truth which is proper to it.”(5) Husband and wife are called, when celebrating the “truth of the sign” (6) (conjugal union), to observe and honor the “life-giving” and “love-giving” grammar of that language. Their union is a radical moment of expressing, in their God-given bodies, the mutual gift of self.
So what about contraception? Does it really harm the relationship of man and woman in marriage?
The conjugal act can only be truthful if it is not frustrated or impeded in its two-fold purpose by a deliberate, intentional choice made by one or both spouses. Humanae Vitae declares immoral “every action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible” (HV, 14).
Sexual union is the last place spouses would wish to encounter “mixed signals” or “disconnect.” The all-encompassing marital vow of unconditional love doesn't stand for falsity, but instead the “total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife” (FC, 32). When this God-given language of love is overlaid by a “contradictory language,” namely that of contraception and its “refusal to be open to life” (FC, 32), the result is not only a mixed message, but also a “falsification” of the sign of the sacrament of marriage.
By separating the love-giving and life-giving meanings of conjugal love, contraception implies that the life-giving meaning of sexual union is manipulable, a disposable “extra,” something less than fully human. The “nuptial meaning” of the human body is violated, and the relationship of the spouses is harmed as they are reduced to objects of mutual self-gratification.
When someone befriends us and subsequently “uses” us in some way, how do we feel? This person, instead of respecting and loving us for who we are, used us. We become the “object,” a mere “means” to that person's “end.” Contracepted sexual union turns an act of love into one of use through the deliberate choice to deprive it of its life-giving potential. By altering this part of their bodies or placing a barrier between them, spouses are in fact withholding, or rejecting, a part of their personhood " their fertility. From the “personalist” or who-we-are standpoint, when we flaw the life-giving dimension, we inevitably flaw the love-giving dimension. The result is what Pope John Paul II calls “sexual utilitarianism.”
But what makes Natural Family Planning (NFP) different from artificial contraception? The difference is not simply one of method or technique.
NFP respects the language of the other's body by viewing fertility as an essential element of what it means to be human. NFP shows on the part of the couple an openness to the gift of life and demonstrates that children are the norm, rather than the exception, in marriage.
Of course, a couple practicing NFP may determine, in prayer, that circumstances preclude them from trying to become pregnant at a particular time. Responsible parenthood requires that the spouses, in “the right and lawful ordering of the births of children” (HV, 21), take into account the good of their own family, their state of health, their means, the good of the society to which they belong, the Church, and all mankind.(7) At such times, NFP tells a couple when to avoid coming together in the marital embrace for the good of the marriage. During times such as this, they express their love in ways other than through the conjugal act.
Pope John Paul II recognizes that even NFP can be used in a selfish way with a “contraceptive mentality.” Yet the practice of NFP, even for imperfect reasons, can lead one toward good. As Jesus has told us, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (Jn 8:32).
If we allow Jesus' command to “love one another” as He loved us to penetrate every aspect " emotional, physical, intellectual and spiritual " of our lives, we had better brace ourselves for renewal. Taking the “gift of self” seriously will exact a price. Husbands and wives who courageously take up their role as “ministers” of the sacrament of marriage indeed know that “the gate is narrow and the way is hard” that “leads to life” (Mt. 7:14). I thank God that for them, and for every one of us in our respective vocations, the “sweetness of the yoke of Christ”(8) together with the Church, which “flings wide open the channels of grace,”(9) stands waiting.
Notes:
4. Theology of the Body, p. 398 (General audience, August 22, 1984).
5. Ibid, p. 397 (General audience, August 22, 1984).
6. Ibid., p. 406 (General audience, October 3, 1984).
7. Ibid., p. 402 (General audience, September 5, 1984).
8. Humanae Vitae, 25.
9. Humanae Vitae, 25.
Next week Bishop Loverde will examine homosexuality, to be followed by a concluding column on the virtue of chastity.
