As the Church marks the 50th anniversary of Humanae Vitae, much has been said regarding the prophetic character of Blessed Paul VI’s controversial encyclical. In particular, the Pope predicted that four things would happen as contraceptive use spread throughout a society. There would be an increase in marital infidelity, a general lowering of moral standards, a loss of reverence for woman as she is reduced to an instrument for the satisfaction of a man’s desires and governments would use coercive power to implement “family planning” policies. In reading the signs of the times, the Pope saw the consequences clearly, but why he was so easily able to see this is just important. For these consequences were just symptoms of a deeper mindset that the Holy Father feared would ultimately conquer the hearts and minds of men, a mindset that was just as soul-killing as the contraceptive mentality to which it was linked. After uttering his prophecy of consequences, the Holy Father tells us the root cause is man’s unwillingness to “accept that there are certain limits, beyond which it is wrong to go” (HV , 17).
On the one hand this is nothing new. One can even say that Original Sin itself is the mark of man’s unwillingness to accept his creaturely limits. Man in his Edenic bliss can eat from every tree in the Garden, save one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (GN 2:16-17). Made in the likeness of God, he is confronted with the choice to be “like gods who know good and evil” (Gn 3:5). That is, he has a choice between conforming himself to the limits of reality, or shaping reality to his liking. He quickly finds out that his decision was never a real option. He passes his confusion on to his progeny along with a proclivity for choosing likewise.
Confusing Limits
Because man is now in a state of confusion, he must set out to discover reality as it really is. To enter into a relationship with reality he must also (re-)discover himself as he really is (including his limits) as well. At first, because of his confusion reality appears rock solid and he discovers many limitations in himself. But as the field of discovery expands, he finds that he has the power to manipulate reality more and more. His limitations become blurred except when he asks a simple question: does this new power over reality include power over myself? If so, then it is actually a power within reality, which is the only true power. Otherwise it is a grasping and remaking of reality.
In many ways chemical contraception represents a paramount example of this principle in play. In the past contraception usually involved changing the act, but with the Pill and the like came the power to alter the reality of a woman’s reproductive system. But this is no mere biological alteration, but an alteration to a person’s biology. Therefore it has to be viewed through a personalistic lens. Does the power the Pill gives over a woman’s cycle carry with it the power of the woman to master herself? And, because a woman’s reproductive system is a relational system, does the Pill give the man in whom she enters into a reproductive relationship with a power to master himself?
Power
The wisdom of Blessed Paul VI’s condemnation of contraception begins to emerge, especially when we add a second principle. With the emergence of new technology comes new power over reality. This power is given at the service of controlling men. The question is which men will be controlled. Will the new power be used to control man himself? Or will the power be used to control other men? Or as CS Lewis put it in The Abolition of Man “For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means…the power of some men to make other men what they please.”
Blessed Paul VI was so accurate in his predictions because he knew that the Pill wasn’t really a medicine to control births, but a poison to control other people. His forecasts are really about the power of one person over another. More to the point, the Pill is about men exercising their power over women. It tells women in order to gain her rightful share in society she must act like one of the big boys. But because woman is a “misbegotten male” she must take a pill to do this. But in truth it is a ploy in which man, who is fertile all the time, can find partners who are infertile all the time. It absolves him of all responsibility and creates an injustice in which women are treated as inferiors. What is so puzzling is that many of them, in the name of equality, swallow the pill anyway. Shouldn’t society have to change and adapt to the feminine genius and not woman herself? As then Cardinal Karol Wojtyla (the future St. John Paul II) said ,
“Contraception makes no contribution to the woman’s personal rights. Since it is a process that makes it possible to satisfy the ‘needs of the sexual instinct’ without taking on any of the responsibility for the consequences of sexual activity, it primarily benefits the man. This is why, once accepted contraception leads to sanctioning his erotic hedonist behavior. In this situation, inevitably, the man benefits at the expense of the woman. He ceases to regard the woman in the context of transmitting life. She becomes for him simply the occasion for enjoying pleasure. If one adds to this the fact that it is inscribed in the very structure of man to take initiative in the sexual realm and that the danger of being violated is a threat primarily to the woman, then one must admit that the more constitution of the woman appears grim indeed. Therefore, when contraception is used, the woman faces not only inequality but also sexual slavery.”
In his opening paragraph of Humanae Vitae, Blessed Paul VI recognized that technology, especially reproductive technologies, were a force that the Church was going to need to confront. Unfortunately she has not been up to the task and many women have suffered because of it. As the Church continues to celebrate this Golden Anniversary of Humane Vitae, let’s work towards a rediscovery of the golden wisdom contained within this prophetic document.