Editor’s Note: The following is section 12 of Pope John Paul II’s 1994 Letter to Families. The full text of Pope John Paul II’s Letter to Families can be found by clicking on the title. The section is entitled, “Responsible Fatherhood and Motherhood.”
It is now time, in this Letter to Families, to bring up two closely related questions. The first, more general, concerns the civilization of love, the other, more specific, deals with responsible fatherhood and motherhood.
We have already said that marriage engenders a particular responsibility for the common good, first of the spouses and then of the family. This common good is constituted by man, by the worth of the person and by everything which represents the measure of his dignity. This reality is part of man in every social, economic and political system. In the area of marriage and the family, this responsibility becomes, for a variety of reasons, even more “demanding”. The Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes rightly speaks of “promoting the dignity of marriage and the family“. The Council sees this “promotion” as a duty incumbent upon both the Church and the State. Nevertheless, in every culture this duty remains primarily that of the persons who, united in marriage, form a particular family. “Responsible fatherhood and motherhood” express a concrete commitment to carry out this duty, which has taken on new characteristics in the contemporary world.
In particular, responsible fatherhood and motherhood directly concern the moment in which a man and a woman, uniting themselves “in one flesh”, can become parents. This is a moment of special value both for their interpersonal relationship and for their service to life: they can become parents–father and mother– by communicating life to a new human being. The two dimensions of conjugal union, the unitive and the procreative, cannot be artificially separated without damaging the deepest truth of the conjugal act itself.[31]
This is the constant teaching of the Church, and the “signs of the times” which we see today are providing new reasons for forcefully reaffirming that teaching. Saint Paul, himself so attentive to the pastoral demands of his day, clearly and firmly indicated the need to be “urgent in season and out of season” (cf. 2 Tim 4:2), and not to be daunted by the fact that “sound teaching is no longer endured” (cf. 2 Tim 4:3). His words are well known to those who, with deep insight into the events of the present time, expect that the Church will not only not abandon “sound doctrine”, but will proclaim it with renewed vigour, seeking in today's “signs of the times” the incentive and insights which can lead to a deeper understanding of her teaching.
Some of these insights can be taken from the very sciences which have evolved from the earlier study of anthropology into various specialized sciences such as biology, psychology, sociology and their branches. In some sense all these sciences revolve around medicine, which is both a science and an art (ars medica), at the service of man's life and health. But the insights in question come first of all from human experience, which, in all its complexity, in some sense both precedes science and follows it.
Through their own experience spouses come to learn the meaning of responsible fatherhood and motherhood. They learn it also from the experience of other couples in similar situations and as they become more open to the findings of the various sciences. One could say that “experts” learn in a certain sense from “spouses”, so that they in turn will then be in a better position to teach married couples the meaning of responsible procreation and the ways to achieve it.
This subject has been extensively treated in the documents of the Second Vatican Council, the Encyclical Humanae Vitae, the “Propositiones” of the 1980 Synod of Bishops, the Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, and in other statements, up to the Instruction Donum Vitae of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The Church both teaches the moral truth about responsible fatherhood and motherhood and protects it from the erroneous views and tendencies which are widespread today. Why does the Church continue to do this? Is she unaware of the problems raised by those who counsel her to make concessions in this area and who even attempt to persuade her by undue pressures if not even threats? The Church's Magisterium is often chided for being behind the times and closed to the promptings of the spirit of modern times, and for promoting a course of action which is harmful to humanity, and indeed to the Church herself. By obstinately holding to her own positions, it is said, the Church will end up losing popularity, and more and more believers will turn away from her.
But how can it be maintained that the Church, especially the College of Bishops in communion with the Pope, is insensitive to such grave and pressing questions? It was precisely these extremely important questions which led Pope Paul VI to publish the Encyclical Humanae Vitae. The foundations of the Church's doctrine concerning responsible fatherhood and motherhood are exceptionally broad and secure. The Council demonstrates this above all in its teaching on man, when it affirms that he is “the only creature on earth which God willed for itself”, and that he cannot “fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself”.[32] This is so because he has been created in the image and likeness of God and redeemed by the only-begotten Son of the Father, who became man for us and for our salvation.
The Second Vatican Council, particularly conscious of the problem of man and his calling, states that the conjugal union, the biblical “una caro“, can be understood and fully explained only by recourse to the values of the “person” and of “gift”. Every man and every woman fully realizes himself or herself through the sincere gift of self. For spouses, the moment of conjugal union constitutes a very particular expression of this. It is then that a man and woman, in the “truth” of their masculinity and femininity, become a mutual gift to each other. All married life is a gift; but this becomes most evident when the spouses, in giving themselves to each other in love, bring about that encounter which makes them “one flesh” (Gen 2:24).
They then experience a moment of special responsibility, which is also the result of the procreative potential linked to the conjugal act. At that moment, the spouses can become father and mother, initiating the process of a new human life, which will then develop in the woman's womb. If the wife is the first to realize that she has become a mother, the husband, to whom she has been united in “one flesh”, then learns this when she tells him that he has become a father. Both are responsible for their potential and later actual fatherhood and motherhood. The husband cannot fail to acknowledge and accept the result of a decision which has also been his own. He cannot hide behind expressions such as: “I don't know”, “I didn't want it”, or “you're the one who wanted it”. In every case conjugal union involves the responsibility of the man and of the woman, a potential responsibility which becomes actual when the circumstances dictate. This is true especially for the man. Although he too is involved in the beginning of the generative process, he is left biologically distant from it; it is within the woman that the process develops. How can the man fail to assume responsibility? The man and the woman must assume together, before themselves and before others, the responsibility for the new life which they have brought into existence.
This conclusion is shared by the human sciences themselves. There is however a need for more in-depth study, analyzing the meaning of the conjugal act in view of the values of the “person” and of the “gift” mentioned above. This is what the Church has done in her constant teaching, and in a particular way at the Second Vatican Council.
In the conjugal act, husband and wife are called to confirm in a responsible way the mutual gift of self which they have made to each other in the marriage covenant. The logic of the total gift of self to the other involves a potential openness to procreation: in this way the marriage is called to even greater fulfillment as a family. Certainly the mutual gift of husband and wife does not have the begetting of children as its only end, but is in itself a mutual communion of love and of life. The intimate truth of this gift must always be safeguarded. “Intimate” is not here synonymous with “subjective”. Rather, it means essentially in conformity with the objective truth of the man and woman who give themselves. The person can never be considered a means to an end; above all never a means of “pleasure”. The person is and must be nothing other than the end of every act. Only then does the action correspond to the true dignity of the person.
In concluding our reflection on this important and sensitive subject, I wish to offer special encouragement above all to you, dear married couples, and to all who assist you in understanding and putting into practice the Church's teaching on marriage and on responsible motherhood and fatherhood. I am thinking in particular about pastors and the many scholars, theologians, philosophers, writers and journalists who have resisted the powerful trend to cultural conformity and are courageously ready to “swim against the tide”. This encouragement also goes to an increasing number of experts, physicians and educators who are authentic lay apostles for whom the promotion of the dignity of marriage and the family has become an important task in their lives. In the name of the Church I express my gratitude to all! What would priests, Bishops and even the Successor of Peter be able to do without you? From the first years of my priesthood I have become increasingly convinced of this, from when I began to sit in the confessional to share the concerns, fears and hopes of many married couples. I met difficult cases of rebellion and refusal, but at the same time so many marvellously responsible and generous persons! In writing this Letter I have all those married couples in mind, and I embrace them with my affection and my prayer.
The full text of Pope John Paul II’s Letter to Families can be found by clicking on the title.
