To conclude Tuesday?s discussion on the evolution of Catholic teaching on the issue of contraception, let me quote extensively from the closing portion of a chapter on ?The Roman Catholic Freeing of Conscience? in the book ?Sacred Choices: The Right to Contraception and Abortion in Ten World Religions? by ethicist Daniel Maguire.
Here, Maguire traces the roots of Christian attitudes towards women which, while since debunked, continue to influence teaching on issues like the status of women, sexuality and reproduction. Surprisingly, though, Maguire ends the chapter on an optimistic note, citing the inevitability of a shift in current Church teachings, given the challenges earth?s inhabitants now face. Would that change doesn?t come too late! Here?s Maguire quoted in full:
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Debates about sexuality and reproduction are always influenced by certain cultural assumptions. These usually involve attitudes toward women and sex. A culture that looks on women, like Pandora and Eve, as sources of evil is going to have trouble justifying having sex with them; it may conclude that only reproduction can justify sexual collusion with women. That is exactly what happened in Christianity. Augustine said that if it were not for reproduction there would be no use for women at all. In his words, ?in any other task a man would be better helped by another man.? Early attitudes toward women were poisonous. The Mosaic Law assumed male ownership of women. Early church writers said women lacked reason and only possessed the image of God through their connection to men. Luther saw women as being like nails in a wall, prohibited by their nature from moving outside their domestic situation. And Aquinas said that females are produced from male embryos damaged through some accident in the womb. As [Christine] Gudorf says in her refreshingly sensible book ?Body, Sex and Pleasure,? the church has rejected all of that nonsense but ?continues to teach most of the sexual moral code which was founded upon such thinking.?
Small wonder that we are rethinking sexual and reproductive ethics. As Gudorf says: ?The Roman Catholic Church (and Christianity in general) has in the last century drastically rethought the meaning of marriage, the dignity and worth of women, the relationship between the body and the soul, and the role of bodily pleasure in Christian life, all of which together have revolutionary implications for church teaching on sexuality and reproduction. In effect, the foundations of the old bans have been razed and their replacements will not support the walls of the traditional ban.?
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GUDORF and other Catholic theologians do not stand alone in the church on this dramatic and important change in Catholic teaching. In 1954, Pope Pius XII laid the groundwork for a change in Catholic teaching when he permitted the rhythm method. Though he quibbled about what means could be used, he did bless contraceptive intent and contraceptive results. He even said there could be multiple reasons to avoid having any children at all in a marriage. In 1968, when Pope Paul VI reaffirmed the view that all mechanical or chemical contraception was sinful the Catholic bishops of 14 different countries respectfully disagreed and told the faithful that they were not sinners if they could not accept this papal teaching.
Most of the laity, of course, had already made up their minds. Birth rates in so-called Catholic nations in Europe and in Latin America are close to or below replacement levels. And as Gudorf wryly puts it, ?it is difficult to believe that fertility was cut in half through voluntary abstinence from sex.? Such dissent by Catholic laity from hierarchical teaching is actually well-provided for in Church teaching. The ?sensus fidelium,? the sense of the faithful, is one of the sources of truth in Catholic theology. This means that the consciences and experiences of good people are guideposts to truth that even the hierarchy must consult.
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In its best historical realizations, Catholicism is not as hidebound and authoritarian as many bishops, popes, and fearful conservatives would make it seem. There exists dissent from hierarchical teaching that is ?in and for the church,? as Catholic theologian Charles Curran taught. Through much of Catholic history, the hierarchy taught that all interest-taking on loans was a sin of usury?even the smallest amount. The laity saw that this was an error and decided that too much interest was sinful and a reasonable amount was not. A century or two later, the hierarchy agreed?especially after the Vatican opened a bank and learned some of the facts of financial life. The laity are again, along with the theologians, leading the church on the moral freedom to practice contraception and to use abortion when necessary as a backstop. Perhaps if the hierarchy were married with families, they could follow the wisdom of the laity, graced and grounded as that conscience is in the lived experience of marriage and children.
Gudorf is hopeful in this regard. She believes that within a generation or two, Catholic hierarchical teaching ?will change to encourage contraception in marriage and to allow early abortion under some circumstances.? She continues: ?This change will occur because as the Catholic Church confronts the reality of a biosphere gasping for survival around its teeming human inhabitants, it will discern the will of God and the presence of the Spirit in the choices of those who choose to share responsibility for the lives and health and prosperity of future generations without reproducing themselves, even if that choice involves artificial contraception and early abortion.?
