The most vexing papal encyclical of modern times marks its 40th anniversary on Friday. Recent events have certainly conspired to spirit “Humanae Vitae” back into the news. Only the other week, Archbishop Jesus Dosado of Ozamiz issued a pastoral letter asking the priests in his archdiocese to consider denying Holy Communion to anti-life politicians. The virtual fatwa prompted me to reread Pope Paul VI’s ardent, anguished love letter to an unchaste world.

Perhaps I am mistaken, or I am the one confused, but in reading the encyclical again I thought I detected a mistake in its reasoning, or at the least an unfortunate confusion.

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Like other Catholic faithful, I have come to the conclusion that, in the specific Philippine experience, unchecked population growth is downright unchristian. The increasing strain on our resources condemns many, if not most, of the two million babies born every year, and their families, too, to a life of poverty. (To study the issue in greater depth, I signed up early this month as a member of the Philippine Center for Population and Development.)

In my view, the point of departure for any discussion on population growth and the “proper regulation of the propagation of offspring” (to quote from Pope Paul VI’s dedication in “Humanae Vitae”) is not dogma, but practice; not “theory,” but experience. Surely (a prayer disguised as an assumption) the Christ who admonished the Pharisees that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath, would understand.

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I think, however, that it is also possible to argue from “theory,” that the theology behind “Humanae Vitae” is not above discussion. Indeed, the encyclical’s language is lucid, and the Pope’s sympathy for the plight of married couples transparent. (I am using Janet E. Smith’s closely worked, lovingly detailed translation, found in the anthology she edited, “Why Humanae Vitae was right: A reader.”)

The heart of the matter lies in Article 11. The key passage in Smith’s translation reads: “an unbreakable connection between the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning, and both are inherent in the conjugal act.”

As phrased in the English version available on the Vatican website, the passage adds appositives: “the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act.” (This is also the same translation used in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.)

Article 12 draws the inevitable conclusion: “that each conjugal act remains ordained in itself to the procreating of human life.” The meaning is clearer in the Catechism: “each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life.”

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If, to quote the encyclical’s first sentence, “God has entrusted spouses with the extremely important mission [‘munus’] of transmitting human life,” and if both the unitive and procreative dimensions inhere in the conjugal act, why should spouses perform the act during infertile periods?

The absolute nature of this mission requires an absolute rule. Thus, “each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life.” Why, then, engage in the act at those times when there is no possibility of transmission? Shouldn’t the Church call for abstention from sex during infertile periods?

Of course, “Humanae Vitae” (and a host of other Catholic Church documents since 1968) recognized the dilemma. “The Church is not inconsistent when it teaches both that it is morally permissible for spouses to have recourse to infertile periods and also that all directly contraceptive practices are morally wrong,” the encyclical reads. “These two situations are essentially different. In the first, the spouses legitimately use a faculty that is given by nature; in the second case, the spouses impede the order of generation from completing its own natural processes.”

I don’t know, but this strikes me as mere rationalization, with the Catholic Church substituting authority for legitimacy. Isn’t the use of artificial methods of family planning, reached after a judicious and reasonable weighing of options, also the legitimate application of a natural faculty? (The answer is no only when the Catholic Church withholds its sanction.) And isn’t “recourse to the infertile period” an act of intellectual dishonesty? The same argument against artificial methods can also be deployed against natural ones: “God knows.”

Of the many acts of criticism leveled against “Humanae Vitae,” I find Bernard Haring’s first response in Commonweal magazine, just over two months after the encyclical came out, to be the most moving. Haring, a friend of Paul VI, praised the Pope’s “courage” for doing “the most unpopular thing,” and noted that the Pope had admitted in public that the letter had caused him “no small suffering.” But Haring also wrote: “The argumentation of ‘Humanae Vitae’ rests mainly on two points. The first is the constant teaching of the Church; the second is the absolute sacredness and inviolability of the biological functions in every use of marriage.”

By the first he means that there is in fact no direct scriptural sanction for the teaching. “‘Humanae Vitae’ differs from ‘Casti Connubii’ by no longer making the effort to base the teaching of the Church in this matter on Genesis 38.” By the second he means that the encyclical runs counter to Vatican II, where “the absolute sacredness of the biological rhythm was explicitly rejected.”

Given these nuances of faith, isn’t it only reasonable to suppose that some of the faithful, as sinful as the rest, cannot follow “Humanae Vitae” in good conscience?

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Email: jnery@inquirer.com.ph