Seriously, A Different Take On Humanae Vitae

The following is an article from Catholic News Agency, more or less written by Cardinal Stafford on the effects of the dissent around the encyclical on the brotherhood of priests in Baltimore.

Priests still suffering from effects of Humanae Vitae dissenters, Vatican cardinal says
Cardinal James Francis Stafford

Rome, Jul 25, 2008 / 04:08 am (CNA).- Today marks the 40th anniversary of the often debated papal encyclical Humanae Vitae, in which Pope Paul VI reaffirmed the Church’s teaching against contraception. Looking back at the events as he experienced them, Cardinal James Francis Stafford writes that the reaction by dissenters to the papal document involved a level of infidelity which divided the ranks of the clergy to such an extent that they have still not recovered.

The recounting of the events of 1968 by Cardinal Stafford-who was the Archbishop of Baltimore at the time of the encyclical’s release-is eloquent, laced with scriptural allusions and the insights of a scholar. He set out to peer into the summer of 1968, “a record of God’s hottest hour,” as he dubs it, at the request of L’Osservatore Romano and has made his submission available to CNA.

{This statement is completely wrong. Cardinal Stafford was conscecrated as an auxilliary bishop in Baltimore in 1976. He was subsequently appointed as the Archbishop of Denver. I hate using CNA for a source. Their writers are awful.}

This “is not an easy or welcome task. But since it may help some followers of Jesus to live what Pope Paul VI called a more ‘disciplined’ life (HV 21), I will explore that event,” the cardinal writes.

Before launching into the retelling of the trial surrounding the dissent of priests to Humanae Vitae, Cardinal Stafford lends his readers some of his scholarly wisdom.

“Lead us not into temptation” is the sixth petition of the Our Father. Πειρασμός (Peirasmòs), the Greek word used in this passage for ‘temptation’, means a trial or test. Disciples petition God to be protected against the supreme test of ungodly powers. The trial is related to Jesus’s cup in Gethsemane, the same cup which his disciples would also taste (Mk 10: 35-45). The dark side of the interior of the cup is an abyss. It reveals the awful consequences of God’s judgment upon sinful humanity. In August, 1968, the weight of the evangelical Πειρασμός fell on many priests, including myself,” the cardinal began.

“The summer of 1968 is a record of God’s hottest hour. The memories are not forgotten; they are painful. They remain vivid like a tornado in the plains of Colorado. They inhabit the whirlwind where God’s wrath dwells. In 1968 something terrible happened in the Church. Within the ministerial priesthood ruptures developed everywhere among friends which never healed. And the wounds continue to affect the whole Church. The dissent, together with the leaders’ manipulation of the anger they fomented, became a supreme test. It changed fundamental relationships within the Church. It was a Πειρασμός for many."

{A number of other things also happened in 1968, things like the assasinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the escalation of the war in Viet Nam, the major race riots, the scintillating democratic convention in Daly town, and huge student demonstrations all over the world. But I forget, this is Cardinal Stafford's personal cup we're reading about here.}

An insider’s view of Paul VI’s Commission
The American cardinal then delved into some of the inner-workings of the Vatican that he was privy to in the years leading up to the issuing of Humanae Vitae. In particular, he recalled that, Cardinal Lawrence J. Shehan, the sixth Archbishop of Baltimore, who was his ecclesiastical superior at the time, was a member of the Papal Commission for the Study of Problems of the Family, Population, and Birth Rates, first established by Blessed Pope John XXIII in 1963 during the Second Vatican Council.

As Pope Paul’s commission prepared to deliberate about the Church’s teaching on contraception, Cardinal Shehan “sent confidential letters to various persons of the Church of Baltimore seeking their advice. I received such a letter,” Stafford writes.

“My response drew upon experience, both personal and pastoral. Family and education had given me a Christian understanding of sex. Yet, in many ways, Cardinal Stafford explains that, “Not one of my professional acquaintances anticipated the crisis of trust which was just around the corner in the relations between men and women.” It wasn’t until a 1961 encounter with a 16 year-old parishioner who was a drug user that he came to the realization of what he had to tell Cardinal Shehan about contraception. {I wonder what kind of bubble these professionals lived in. Even my mother saw that the days when a woman was stuck in a horrific marriage were coming to an end.}

“A sixteen-year old had been jailed in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. At the time of my late afternoon visit to him, he was experiencing drug withdrawal unattended and alone in a tiny cell. His screams filled the corridors and adjoining cells. Through the iron bars dividing us, I was horror-stricken watching him in his torment. The abyss he was looking into was unimaginably terrifying. In this drugged youth writhing in agony on the floor next to an open toilet I saw the bitter fruits of the estrangement of men and women. His mother, separated from her husband, lived with her younger children in a sweltering third floor flat on Light St. in old South Baltimore. The father was non-existent for them. The failure of men in their paternal and spousal roles was unfolding before my eyes and ears. Since then more and more American men have refused to accept responsibility for their sexuality.” {Which is precisely one of the major reasons why women took to taking the pill. The male propensity to dump their responsibilities had always been prevalent amongst the poor.}

This experience, Stafford explained in a confidential letter to Cardinal Shehan resulted in an insight “which was elliptical: the gift of love should be allowed to be fruitful. These two fixed points are constant. This simple idea lit up everything like lightning in a storm. I wrote about it more formally to the Cardinal: the unitive and procreative meanings of marriage cannot be separated. Consequently, to deprive a conjugal act deliberately of its fertility is intrinsically wrong. To encourage or approve such an abuse would lead to the eclipse of fatherhood and to disrespect for women.” {I'm sorry, but I have never been able to get my head around this logic. The major assumption seems to be that people are incapable of demonstrating legitimate love unless they are engaged in making babies. This has to be the direct result of male celibates experiencing sexual arousal primarily in the form of unattached lust, which by definition objectifies the woman.}

For reasons unknown, this idea failed to sway Cardinal Shehan who sided with the majority of the papal commission, which advised that the Church’s teaching on contraception be changed in light of new circumstances. {Interestingly enough, the only archbishop who was on the commission and didn't bother to show for the vote was Karol Wojtyla, and he may not have attended any of the meetings, although he is reputed to have been one of the voices who swayed PPVI to stick with prior teaching. His objection was apparently over the impact the change would have on the laity's perceptions of Papal infallibility.}

“This sets the scene for the tragic drama following the actual date of the publication of the encyclical letter on July 29, 1968,” Cardinal Stafford writes.
Following the publication of Humanae Vitae, Stafford recalls the way the rejection of the Pope’s encyclical unfolded.

“Rev. Charles E. Curran, instructor of moral theology of The Catholic University of America … and nine other professors of theology of the Catholic University met, by evident prearrangement, in Caldwell Hall to receive, again by prearrangement with the Washington Post, the encyclical, part by part, as it came from the press. The story further indicated that by nine o’clock that night, they had received the whole encyclical, had read it, had analyzed it, criticized it, and had composed their six-hundred word ‘Statement of Dissent.’ Then they began that long series of telephone calls to ‘theologians’ throughout the East, which went on, according to the Post, until 3:30 A.M., seeking authorization, to attach their names as endorsers (signers was the term used) of the statement, although those to whom they had telephoned could not have had an opportunity to see either the encyclical or their statement. Meanwhile, they had arranged through one of the local television stations to have the statement broadcast that night.”

Cardinal Shehan was “scornful” of the reaction. “In 1982 he wrote, ‘The first thing that we have to note about the whole performance is this: so far as I have been able to discern, never in the recorded history of the Church has a solemn proclamation of a Pope been received by any group of Catholic people with so much disrespect and contempt’.” {This was Cardinal Shehan's public position. His private position was totally different. Cardinal Shehan wasn't the only Archbishop who was sending mixed messages, the public one for Rome, and the private one for pastoral counseling.}

The test in Baltimore
“The personal Πειρασμός, the test, began,” writes Stafford, who was a priest of the Diocese of Baltimore at the time.
He remembers that the trial began with a phone call inviting him to St. William of York parish in southwest Baltimore to discuss the encyclical. “The meeting was set for Sunday evening, August 4. I agreed to come. Eventually a large number of priests were gathered in the rectory’s basement. I knew them all,” Stafford relates.

Although he expected a chance to read the papal document and discuss it, nothing of the sort happened. Instead, one pastor/ leader, assisted by some priests from the local seminary read the Washington statement aloud. Then the leader asked each of us to agree to have our names attached to it. No time was allowed for discussion, reflection, or prayer. Each priest was required individually to give a verbal ‘yes’ or ‘no’.” {One has to remember that the laity weren't given a chance to read it or vote on it. We were given only the choice to follow it. It's hard for me to generate much sympathy for poor Cardinal Stafford.}

“I could not sign it,” states Cardinal Stafford. ‘My earlier letter to Cardinal Shehan came to mind. I remained convinced of the truth of my judgement and conclusions.” … However, Stafford says that no one else there held his convictions; “Everyone agreed to sign. There were no abstentions. As the last called upon, I felt isolated. The basement became suffocating.”

What happened next involved was unprecedented in the history of the Baltimore presbyterate, according to Stafford. “They had planned carefully how to exert what amounted to emotional and intellectual coercion. … The priest/leader, drawing upon some scatological language from his Marine Corp past in the II World War responded contemptuously to my decision. He tried to force me to change. He became visibly angry and verbally abusive. The underlying, ‘fraternal’ violence became more evident. He questioned and then derided my integrity. He taunted me to risk my ecclesiastical ‘future,’ although his reference was more anatomically specific. The abuse went on.” {At least you weren't threatened with eternal damnation for commiting a gravely immoral act.}

“We all had been subjected to a new thing in the Church, something unexpected. A pastor and several seminary professors had abused rhetoric to undermine the truth within the evangelical community. When opposed, they assumed the role of Job’s friends. Their contempt became a nightmare,” Stafford observes.

The aftermath of dissent
This type of abuse was paralleled in the secular history of the time as well, says the cardinal, citing an encounter from April 1968 with the same priest who would a few months later lead the dissent meeting at St. William of York.

As the riots in Baltimore raged following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Father Stafford called the pastor to see if he might need food, medical assistance, or other help from the city. When the pastor answered the phone, Stafford could hear “disillusionment and fear” in the priest’s voice as he described how, “Everything has been set ablaze.”

The memory of this incident prompted Stafford to realize that, “Ecclesial dissent can become a kind of spiritual violence in its form and content. …Violence and truth don’t mix. … The violence of the priests’ August gathering gave rise to its own ferocious acrimony. Conversations among the clergy, where they existed, became contaminated with fear. Suspicions among priests were chronic. …The Archdiocesan priesthood lost something of the fraternal whole which Baltimore priests had known for generations.” {Apparently this climate of fear and mistrust was accelerated under JPII and now we have archbishops authorizing secret surveillance of their religious empoyees. Things have certainly improved.}

“Something else happened among priests on that violent August night,” explains Cardinal Stafford, “Friendship in the Church sustained a direct hit.”

A lesson learned
In spite of all the damage done by the dissent, Stafford stresses that, “that night was not a total loss.” “Paradoxically, in the hot, August night a new sign shown unexpectedly on the path to future life. It read, ‘Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered’.” {Am I to understand this to mean that obedience trumps love and obedience is the major lesson I should take from the life of Christ?}

“I did not become ‘ashamed of the Gospel’ that night and found ‘sweet delight in what is right.’ It was not a bad lesson. Ecclesial obedience ran the distance,” the American cardinal writes.
The lesson to be learned from this is that, “Contemporary obedience of disciples to the Successor of Peter cannot be separated from the poverty of spirit and purity of heart modeled and won by the Word on the Cross,” writes Stafford. {Now I get it. I'm to equate obedience to the Papacy with modeling the life of Christ. According to Cardinal Stafford they 'cannot be separated'.
Cardinal Stafford closes his reflections by giving his honest assessment of where the Church stands after the decades of dissent.
“Diocesan presbyterates have not recovered from the July/August nights in 1968. Many in consecrated life also failed the evangelical test. Since January 2002, the abyss has opened up elsewhere. The whole people of God, including children and adolescents, now must look into the abyss and see what dread beasts are at its bottom. Each of us shudders before the wrath of God, each weeps in sorrow for our sins and each begs for the Father’s merciful remembrance of Christ’s obedience.” {And now the pedophelia scandal is attributed to clerical dissent with Humanae Vitae. Must be some form of proportionalism or something.}

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I think I've read the above article a half a dozen times and am still not sure what point I'm supposed to take from it except that total obedience to the Papacy is equal to total obedience to Christ. I guess instead of a Holy Trinity, we now have a Holy Foursome.

It's hard for me to have much sympathy for the plight of Cardinal Stafford, but I will give him a great deal of credit for operating in total integrity. One of the things which really impacted my perception of the hierarchy was all the double messages they sent during this time. It was hard to take any public pronouncement seriously when the grapevine and actual pastoral practice was so opposite. The public face of many in the hierarchy was the primacy of obedience to the papacy where the private pastoral face was the primacy of individual conscience. Humanae Vitae put many true Vatican II bishops in a horrible bind between their personal conscience on this issue and the institutional demand for obedience with in the ranks.

If Humanae Vitae has proven anything, it's how destating the effects can be when a pronouncement is patently out of sync with the majority of the people of God, and most especially when it's out of sync with the majority of the clergy. I also think that Humanae Vitae brought out another conflict. Many, many people percieved that relaxing the ban on artifial birth control was an act of compassion, and when one reaches that understanding, teaching compliance to the ban as an act of obedience holds little water.

The spin now is to couple Paul's writing with John Paul's theology of the body and try to raise this encyclical to new levels of spiritually brilliant insight. The truth is it was never prophetic insight, it was rehash of old arguments based in the notion that sex exists primarily for procreation with a token argument about unity. The only thing unifying about Humanae Vitae is that to practice NFP both partners have to be totally unified in agreeing to engage in the practice to avoid conception. I see this as just another one of those hypocritical theological arguments which thinks up a 'new' process in order to circumvent some other absolute traditional and scriptural truth. Just like the annulment process. In my book, birth control is birth control and divorce is divorce, and as many angels as want to can dance on the head of a pin.