A reader writes:
A while ago, my wife stopped taking the pill. I am ashamed to admit this, but we did not realize that the Church taught that contraception was intrinsically evil. We knew they did not "approve" of it, but we did not think it was a grave sin. We also did not know that the pill could sometimes function as an abortafacient. Anyway, when we found out, we immediately got off the pill.
Even though we had made the decision to get off the pill and to stop contracepting, I still wanted to meet with my pastor to discuss the issue of contraception in general, since I really did not understand what was "intrinsically evil" about it.
Anyway, my pastor had some interesting things to say. He pulled out a piece of paper with a [PHONY-SOUNDING TOOL FOR EVALUATING YOUR CONSCIENCE] on it. He told me that my wife and I should use this [TOOL] to make a "mature decision" whether contraception was right for us.
He stated that the most important axiom governing [THE TOOL] was this: Morality is based on reality. He said that the Church’s moral teachings were a "best case scenario" or simply IDEALS to be reached for, and that pastoral practice may not measure up to the optimum.
He basically told me that we needed to do what was right for us, in our situation.
Needless to say, I was very shocked at what the priest said. So I just came right out and asked him: "Father, are you saying that if my wife and I, after reflection, make a mature decision to continue to contracept, that it would be an acceptable decision"? He replied, "Yes."
So, can a decision by a husband and wife to contracept ever be licit?
Here is the teaching of the Church:
Every action which, whether 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 [Humanae Vitae 14].
Thus it is never licit to use the Pill or anything else in order to achieve a contraceptive effect.
It is extremely tempting to simply state that your priest lied to you, but I have to hold open the possibility that he is just grossly misinformed about the nature of the Church’s teachings. In any event, he grossly misrepresented them to you.
It is also difficult to resist the conclusion that he is likely to be morally culpable for this gross misrepresentation as well, since a few years ago the Pope issued an encyclical (Veritatis Splendor), one of whose key and widely-reported points was the repudiation of exactly the kind of moral theology your priest pushed on you (i.e., that the Church proposes only goals to strive and that nothing is intrinsically evil so that particular circumstances can allow one to morally do things that the Church proposes as intrinsically evil).
Whether he is culpable for his action or not, I could not recommend that you seek this man’s counsel on any matter of Catholic moral theology. He is at a minimum grossly ignorant of its basic principles and (with a significant degree of probability) knowingly subversive of it.
Not the first priest I have known (or rather heard of in this instance) to be knowingly subversive of Church teaching (if he is knowingly so). I even believe that, in the U.S. and Western Europe, this is the norm, not the exception.
It is this sort of thing that also makes it well nigh impossible to find a priest reliable enough to serve as one’s Spiritual Director. It seems easier to find an honest politician these days than it is to find a priest faithful to the teachings of Holy Mother Church.
Desperate times we live in . . . .
Whenever I hear stories about priests giving this sort of counsel, I am reminded of a passage in Pope Pius XI’s letter Casti Connubii. Having just affirmed that contraception is gravely sinful, Pope Pius writes:
Priests have an awesome responsibility and it is therefore vitally important that we pray for them!
Jimmy, I am intrigued by the “phony-sounding tool” the priest gave the couple — is there any way you could post the document (or at least the title) or email it to me? I understand if you can’t, but I’d like to see it if possible.
Thanks,
‘thann
I would post it, but I’d never heard of the tool before, and googling it didn’t turn it up. I therefore decided to delete the description of it lest I misevaluate it due to not having examined it for myself.
After writing the post, though, I did e-mail the reader asking for more info on the tool (in particular, the correct spelling of its name) to see if I could find it or something about it online. Will let y’all know if anything turns up.
I well remember the priest at our first parish (we’re adult converts) telling me in confession that if I had sinned there was no need, really, to avoid receiving the Blessed Sacrament unless I was a known mass murderer, or something. When I asked about contraception, rather than affirming the teaching of the church, he pointed out that natural family planning was also considered sinful unless there were serious reasons for using it. He may have been technically correct, but the implication seemed to be that artificial methods and NFP were morally equivalent, or nearly so.
I am working on trying to convert my protestant younger brother and his family, but I am scared to death of what they might encounter when they go to their local Catholic church. I think the best thing may be to warn them in advance that they may not find an orthodox priest in their local parish, but this certainly muddies the waters when you are trying to help someone into the church. Any suggestions?
Remind them of a parable of the wheat and the tares?
We too received advice from our LIBERAL priest at the time of our pre-nup counseling. Contraception was just okey-dokey with him. I hold myself to blame too, though. I think I sought out people who would tell me what I wanted to hear.
Now we’re in a good orthodox parish, and I’ve given up my dissident ways. Full submission, baby!
A RAY OF HOPE
As our religious ed director says, every passing year hundreds of the baby boomer priests are retiring, and in their place come young, enthusiastic, conservative, ORTHODOX priests. He says the seminaries are in MUCH better shape these days. The future is bright!!!
I’ve finally (or actually CA’s booklet with scripture’s guidance) convinced my wife to give up contraception. I can convince my wife on one of Catholicism’s most difficult teachings, but I can’t convince her on Catholicism itself. I went to my 5th parish in search of an orthodox mass today. This one might just be bearable if he doesn’t make a practice using homilies to comment about the glass ceiling for women. I don’t even know if there is an SSPX church near me, but I’m almost ready to throw in the towel. A real alternative, going Byzantine rite so I can remain loyal to Rome, is seeming more agreeable.
Just have a quiet moment of reflection and ask God if contraception is right for you? That’s not Catholicism, that’s Mormonism! You can do anything you want –even abortion– so long as you get that “burning in the bosom.”
If Veritas Splendor does not convince the priest, then maybe he should convert out of the Church. The Mormons would eat him up as a prize catch and he would not be leading an entire flock astray through his dishonesty (assuming of course that he is being deliberately subversive).
“He said that the Church’s moral teachings were a “best case scenario” or simply IDEALS to be reached for, and that pastoral practice may not measure up to the optimum. ”
So, if I really, really need that stress-free, relaxing 6 month vacation in Bora Bora, (for the good of my soul, ya know), it’s OK to go ahead with that bank robbery thing? COOL!!!
I am convinced that the sad reality is that many priests offer the advice given by this priest because they are human and subject to influences by the other humans around them. In our culture, contraception is nearly universal among adults and increasingly prevalent among children. Among Catholics, 80 to 90 percent of married couples contracept.
This is the culture in which priests themselves form their consciences. In this culture, almost everybody views contraception as the norm for married couples, even a right (the Supreme Court has affirmed it as such… twice). In such an environment, charity demands a different approach when addressing priests who offer bad advice on contraception. It’s not that we should accept the priest’s advice or seek to excuse it but rather that we need to befriend the priest, tell him of our experience with Natural Family Planning, and even suggest (as Dr. Janet Smith does) that if there’s no difference between NFP and artificial contraception, then why not simply try NFP because it is 1) cheap; 2) simple to learn and use; 3) reliable for both avoiding conception and for deliberately conceiving; and 4) forces us to talk intimately with one another as husband and wife about the very basis of our physical relationship. And these are merely the natural reasons for favoring NFP. The supernatural reasons are the nourishment that it provides us within the sacrament of matrimony to help us grow closer together as husband and wife, and the sanctifying grace to which it opens us when we order our practice of NFP for the proper reasons and to the proper ends.
In this, it is very important to observe that couples often turn to NFP because we sometimes have trouble conceiving and NFP helps us to correctly identify the fertile period in order to deliberately achieve the great blessing of a child (and then children) in our lives. If this is a case with any of you, share it with your priest! Let him know that NFP helped you conceive and that you are in awe of the sheer beauty of God’s work in creating you, your spouse, and your child. These blessings – especially for the couple who has had trouble conceiving – are always sources of great joy. Our priests need to hear about it.
These blessings of NFP must be at the forefront of our conversation, particularly when speaking with priests who seem unduly influenced by the coarseness of our society and its generalized hostility toward children. It does appear that when many, perhaps even most, Catholics discuss family planning with their priest, they are looking for justification for their current contraceptive behavior. When this is all a priest hears, he himself may be led astray. It is up to us to lead these priests back by speaking of the raw joys and authentic freedom we have because we practice NFP – or more properly because we use NFP as a means to practice the virtue of marital chastity. And this virtue leads us to grace.
In short, when we observe that a priest gives bad advice – or even appears to be genuinely and unrepentantly dissident – we must counter with love by repeatedly offering our own experiences as witness to the power of practicing marital chastity through the discipline of NFP.