Fred Sneesby - Observations on Culture, Faith and Politics

Birth Control, Faith Control

November 24, 2006

The American Bishops ended their annual meeting last week (I wonder if they get those little canvas bags that you can put pens in and pads and chip clips and other convention-type paraphernalia) and issued some pronouncements about homosexuality, birth control, and the Eucharist. Not that lots of people were waiting for these documents, but they did nothing to enliven the Church or expand its mission. An opportunity missed to be sure, but, really, more steps taken by leaders who are walking toward a dead end. It’s sort of like a pack-a-day smoker in his 60’s; is it the cigarette he smoked on November 20, 2006 that kills him, the one he smoked March 3, 1992, or the one he will smoke August 10, 2010? Which of these more-of-the-same official pronouncements on birth control, celibacy, homosexuality, women’s ordination, and the like will be the one that kills the Church?

In one of the news articles about the annual bishops’ meeting, the reporter quoted some statistic stating that only 4% of Catholics practiced natural family planning, implying that 96% of Catholics use artificial birth control. These sorts of statistics aren’t super scientific. A Harris Poll in September of 2005 stated that 90% of Catholics thought the use of artificial birth control was morally acceptable. Whatever the exact number, it is safe to say that there is a huge discrepancy between what the bishops are teaching and what the faithful are believing.

What we have here is the vast majority of Catholics, by filtering their experience through their consciences, coming to a moral judgment that is completely at odds with the teaching authority of the Church. That fact should give you pause even if you were a bishop. The bishops did not pause. Many traditionalists would call the bishops’ unwavering support for the Church’s ban on artificial birth control (and the teaching against homosexuality, and women and married clergy) courageous. I would call it a timid retreat from the truth and, worse, a blatant disregard for the wisdom coming from the lay faithful, an essential component in the “whole people’s supernatural discernment in matters of faith” (Lumen Gentium, 12).

The input of the laity in teachings about sexual matters is vital. The clergy and their apologists are getting it wrong, for many reasons. From the early 1960’s when a papal commission was ordered by the bishops in the Second Vatican Council to study the matter of artificial birth control (it was a relatively new “technology” in that “the Pill” was only marketed in the 1950’s) and recommended to Paul VI that he change the Church’s teaching and he ignored their advice, until now when the bishops still cling to the natural law model of judging sexual moral issues even though moral theologians have advanced deeper and richer ways of approaching these matters, the hierarchy has circled the wagons and insisted on law and order rather than meet the moral challenges of a new world head on.

When Paul VI did finally speak in his encyclical letter on sexuality and birth control, Humanae Vitae, he ended up devastating the teaching authority of the Church. Since it came in the midst of revolutionary cultural changes, it is hard to pinpoint how much that encyclical letter was by itself responsible for the diminishment of the Catholic Church; that it has been a factor is not seriously disputed by many. Yet, the US Bishops keep marching along whistling the same tune. By insisting on these misguided teachings on birth control, the only thing the hierarchy is controlling is the spread of the faith.

They are damaging the Church and its mission. The point is not that the bishops should be making statements that are popular so as to attract more members and make it easier to be a Catholic, the point is that they should be making statements that are true so that those who would be firm Catholics can commit themselves body and soul to what the Church stands for. Several divisions of the Church Militant (a traditional phrase for Catholics living on earth) should not be standing around scratching their heads or wondering if their leaders are engaging them in a cause that is worth living and dying for. They should be pressing forward wholeheartedly. They cannot do that if their leaders are teaching things that do not ring true.

There are plenty of churches that are perfectly respectable and that have sufficient congregants to stay afloat. They are also completely irrelevant. I don’t want to see the Catholic Church become one of those, worshipping merrily along while letting the world go to hell in a hand basket. The Catholic Church should be right in the middle of matters of war and peace, economy, health, and every other venue of suffering and injustice. They will never be able to do that convincingly if they cannot get it right in the usual list of controversial topics such as birth control, women’s ordination, and the like.