Theology: July 2008 Archives

 

On the 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae last week I observed the prophetic nature of Pope Paul VI's work and the gift it is to the Church and the world. Below I am adding a recently published article on the same subject by a scholar and friend, Don DeMarco.

 

Paul VI versus Playboy

By Donald DeMarco

 

In 1986, Brother Don Fleischhacker of the University of Notre Dame wrote a letter to Playboy protesting that magazine's fragmented view of human sexuality.

 

Citing "Humanae Vitae," this intrepid Holy Cross religious reasoned that once "the contraceptive mentality is accepted, there can be no coherent objective ground for opposition to homosexual activity." If the unitive aspect of sex becomes an end in itself, he went on to explain, "There is no essential reason why sex should be restricted to couples of different sexes."

 

Paul VI PP.jpgRecent events have proven that Brother Don was as prophetic as was Pope Paul VI when he penned "Humane Vitae" back in 1968. For Playboy, however, the letter was treated as an object of ridicule and its content irreverently dismissed: "Brother, you sound like St. Thomas' lawyer," wrote the Playboy editor, who went on to bless "both kinds" of sexual relations.

 

This holier-than-thou posture of Playboy explains why its founder, Hugh Hefner, has declared that he is the most moral human being he has ever met. From the perspective of Playboy, it is far ahead of the church in the sheer number of wonderful things it deems good, including marriage for same-sex partners. Playboy has surpassed Genesis in its generosity, and outdistanced mother church in its magnanimity.

 

Today marks the 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life), the remarkable encyclical of the Servant of God Pope Paul VI. In the 1968 encyclical, the Pope reminds us that "Married love particularly reveals its true nature and nobility when we realize that it takes its origin from God, who "is love," the Father "from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named." This timeless work is not merely about regulating birth, conception and abortion. It is about the Divine Plan for us, about the beauty of human love between a husband and wife, about loving children and about growing in holiness so that one day we will be united with God in heaven. To think otherwise is selfish and narcissistic. The greatness of the teaching found in Humanae Vitae is there is unequivocally a dignity in collaborating with the Divine Plan on the part of every person. What has become clear to me is that all of what is taught by Pope Paul remains true today: the contraceptive mentality has watered down, even destroyed an integral notion of love in married life, sex, holiness & sacrifice, spiritual fatherhood & motherhood, priesthood, etc.

 

The acceptance of the Pill as a "normal" way to deal with a pregancy (i.e., a real human life) has encouraged Catholics (and other Christians) to reduce their salvation to something they manage rather accept as a gift from God. Since when does one manage God's gift of salvation? Isn't salvation freely given? Isn't faith a supernatural gift? Faith has consequences, just look at the saints and countless others who would not capitulate to society's demands for insidious compromise. Pope Paul's teaching stands against the constant degradation of marriage, family life and holiness. In so many ways Humanae Vitae  is "sign of contradiction" in the face of those who denigrate marriage by not seeing marriage as based on authentic love with its origins in the Blessed Trinity that is faithful, exclusive and eternal. If you want to know why our human existence is often "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short," to quote Thomas Hobbes, then you have you examine the attitudes about love, sexuality, responsibility and holiness. Taking a Pill will not exempt you from reality, at least not true reality. 

 

The Pope writes:

  Paul VI.jpg  ...one is not the master of the sources of life but rather the minister of the design established by the Creator. Just as man does not have unlimited dominion over his body in general, so also, and with more particular reason, he has no such dominion over his specifically sexual faculties, for these are concerned by their very nature with the generation of life, of which God is the source. "Human life is sacred--all men must recognize that fact," Our predecessor Pope John XXIII recalled. 'From its very inception it reveals the creating hand of God."

 

Through the intercession of Saint James, Mary, Mother of God, and Saint Joseph, may married couples and those considering the vocation of married life remain close to the Lord.

 

Mary Eberstadt's article "The Vindication of Humanae Vitae" in the August/September 2008 issue of First Things  is worth reading and studying. Eberstadt does a terriffic job in relating the reality of the contraceptive culture and shows how Pope Paul was right all along. Also worth the time is Karol Wojytla's 1960 book, Love and Responsibility. Later as Pope John Paul II he delivered to the Church what is known as the Theology of the Body.

About the author

Paul A. Zalonski is from New Haven, CT. He is a member of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, a Catholic ecclesial movement and an Oblate of Saint Benedict. Contact Paul at paulzalonski[at]yahoo.com.

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