To Catholic Couples...Is Obedience to Humanae Vitae
Are you Catholics? Do you wish to follow the Lord Jesus Christ faithfully in your marriage?
Before He ascended into heaven Jesus gave His Apostolic Church the authority and the duty to teach all mankind God’s will for them and what is necessary for their salvation (Matt. 28).
In fulfilling this duty to teach mankind the way to salvation, Pope Paul VI wrote the encyclical Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life). This reaffirms Jesus Christ’s teaching through His Church on God’s purpose for married love and the procreation of new human life.
Because of the attraction of our age to selfish pleasure, especially in the widespread use of contraception, the Church through Humanae Vitae is calling men and women back to God’s plan for married love. Catholic couples are called to respond by knowing this teaching and accepting it wholeheartedly as Jesus’s teaching as the will of God for their life and happiness.
But what about those Catholics, even priests, who counsel us that we do not need to obey the Church’s teaching as it is given to us in HUMANAE VITAE?
"Those who place themselves in open conflict with the law of God, authentically taught by the Church, lead spouses along a false path. What the Church teaches concerning contraception does not pertain to the category of matter open to discussion among theologians. To teach the contrary is to lead the moral conscience of spouses into error" (John Paul II, June 5, 1987, Conference on Problems of Responsible Procreation).
Are we not free to follow our own conscience?
"Married people should realize that in their behaviour they may not simply follow their own fancy but must be ruled by conscience - and conscience ought to be conformed to the law of God in the light of the teaching authority of the Church, which is the authentic interpreter of divine law. For the divine law throws light on the meaning of married love, protects it and leads it to truly human fulfilment" (Vatican II, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, N. 50).
"In the task of transmitting life, they are not free, therefore, to proceed at will, as if they could determine with complete autonomy the right paths to follow; but they must conform their actions to the creative intention of God, expressed in the very nature of marriage and of its acts, and manifested by the constant teaching of the Church" (Humanae Vitae, N. 10).
Isn’t HUMANAE VITAE simply an ideal which many may find too difficult to live?
"To maintain that situations exist in which it is not de facto, possible for the spouses to be faithful to all the requirements of the truth of conjugal love is equivalent to forgetting this event of grace which characterizes the New Covenant: the grace of the Holy Spirit makes possible that which is not possible to man, left solely to his own powers" (John Paul II, Seminar on Responsible Parenthood, Sept. 17, 1983).
"... the gift of the Spirit accepted and responded to by husband and wife, helps them to live their human sexuality in accordance with God’s plan and as a sign of the unitive and fruitful love of Christ for His Church" (John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation on the Family Familiaris Consortio, 1981, N. 33).
Have we then been falsely led to believe that using contraception can be helpful for our marriage?
"When couples, by means of recourse to contraception, separate these two meanings."
[i.e., the unitive and procreative] that God the Creator has inscribed in the being of man and woman and in the dynamism of their sexual communion, they act as ‘arbiters’ of the divine plan and they ‘manipulate’ and degrade human sexuality - and with it themselves and their married partner - by altering its value of ‘total’ self-giving" (John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation on the Family Familiaris Consortio, N. 32).
But isn’t it possible that the Church will change this teaching?
"The Church is not the author of the moral law nor is she the arbiter. She is only its depository and its interpreter she can never declare to be permissible that which is not so by reason of its intimate and unchangeable opposition to the true good of man" (Humanae Vitae, N. 18).
So then the Church does say that obedience to HUMANAE VITAE’s teaching on marriage is necessary for salvation?
"... Jesus Christ when communicating to Peter and to the apostles His divine authority and sending them to teach all nations His commandments, constituted them as guardians and authentic interpreters of all the moral law, not only, that is, of the law of the Gospel, but also of the natural law which is also an expression of the will of God, the faithful fulfilment of which is equally necessary for salvation.
"Conformably to this mission of hers, the Church has always provided - and even more amply in recent times - a coherent teaching concerning both the nature of marriage and the correct use of conjugal rights and the duties of husband and wife" (Humanae Vitae, N. 4).
"The moral law reveals to us God’s plan regarding marriage, the total good of conjugal love: the desire to diminish that plan is a lack of respect toward’s man’s dignity. The law of God expresses the demand as the truth of the human person; that order of divine Wisdom as St. Augustine says, ‘which, if we observe it in this life, will lead to God, and unless we observe it we will not reach God’" (John Paul II Seminar on Responsible Parenthood, Sept. 17, 1983).
Through His Church Jesus is showing us how to live according to God’s plan and thus to find true happiness both here and eternally with Him in heaven. He marvellously helps us to live His Way through all of life’s difficulties.
"Christ has redeemed us! This means: He has given us the possibility of realizing the entire truth of our being ..." (John Paul II, Course on Responsible Parenthood, March 1, 1984).
His truth is not against our nature but frees it to be fully what it is.
"In the Christian view, chastity by no means signifies rejection of human sexuality or lack of esteem for it: rather it signifies spiritual energy capable of defending love from the perils of selfishness and aggressiveness, and able to advance it towards its full realization" (Apostolic Exhortation on the Family Familiaris Consortio, N. 33).
If you are a Catholic couple who has been using contraception, please learn what the Church is teaching and through knowledge of the truth return to following Christ faithfully.
Copies of Humanae Vitae and Familiaris Consortlo are available from the Daughters of St. Paul bookstore in your area, or write to the Daughters at 50 St. Paul’s Ave., Jamaica Plain, MA 02130.
For information on natural family planning, write to CUL, New Hope, KY 40052.
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