Pinoy Kasi
Behind human life
By Michael Tan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:42:00 07/25/2008
MANILA, Philippines—Today is the 40th anniversary of the papal encyclical “Humanae Vitae” (On Human Life), cited as the basis for the Catholic Church’s prohibition of “artificial” contraception. I am certain many people, Catholics included, are not even aware of the encyclical and, among those who know of the encyclical, very few would have read the document.
Catholics and non-Catholics alike simply presume that the Catholic Church has always banned contraception, and that they do this based on doctrines that have not changed across time. Rina Jimenez-David’s columns last Tuesday and Wednesday summarized the work of historians and theologians showing that the Catholic Church has not always been consistent on issues of sexuality, including family planning and abortion.
John Nery’s column on Tuesday grappled more with the applications of “Humanae Vitae,” and raises questions many people are asking today not just about family planning but about the very function of marriage itself.
My column will focus on the scenes behind “Humanae Vitae.” Understanding these events could help us answer some of the questions we constantly ask about the Catholic Church and family planning. My account here mainly relies on an extensively researched book by Robert Blair Kaiser entitled, “The Politics of Sex and Religion,” published in 1985. (He also wrote “The Encyclical That Never Was,” published in 1987.) Kaiser knows the Vatican, having worked for Time magazine and writing on Catholic Church issues all through the 1960s.
To put “Humanae Vitae” in context, we have to go further back for a quick review of the Church’s perspective on sexuality. Early Christians adopted a view, borrowed from the Stoics, that saw the body and sex rather negatively. Physical pleasures were dangerous, and sex, well, St. Augustine wrote that the only “excusing good” for sex was reproduction.
Calendar method
Despite these views and the emphasis on procreation, Catholics sought to regulate their fertility through the centuries with a variety of methods, from herbal potions to withdrawal. When these failed, they resorted to abortion and even infanticide. It’s a situation that we still see today in many countries, including the Philippines.
Contraception continued to be haphazard into the 20th century simply because little was known about the physiological processes around fertility. It was not until 1930 that two physicians, Kyusaku Ogino and Herman Kraus, working independently, learned to calculate the incidence and length of a woman’s infertile period, paving the way for more scientific family planning methods.
That same year, Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical “Casti Connubii” (On Chaste Marriage) reiterating that “the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children,” but noting that there were also matrimonial rights, albeit secondary, that needed to be considered: “...mutual aid, the cultivating of mutual love, and the quieting of concupiscence, which husband and wife are not forbidden to consider as long as they are subordinated to the primary end and so long as the intrinsic nature of the act is preserved.”
In 1951, in a speech before Italian midwives, Pope Pius XII said couples could limit intercourse to the infertile period, if they had good reasons for limiting the number of children. This was the calendar method, which unfortunately was not very reliable, especially for the many women with irregular menstrual cycles.
The pill
In the 1950s, medical scientists were able to develop a hormonal contraceptive pill, which was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 1960. Here now was a very reliable method of contraception. “The pill” sparked mixed reactions, including hopes for couples who wanted to space births, as well as fears that this would lead to hedonism. Curiously, one conservative theologian, Marcelino Zalba, suggested the pill could be allowed for Catholic sisters working in war-torn Belgian Congo to prevent pregnancies from rape.
The discovery of the pill could not have happened at a tenser period for the Catholic Church. The liberal Pope John XXIII had initiated Vatican II, introducing many reforms and upsetting conservatives. In 1963, he created a Pontifical Commission on Population, Family and Birth to study marriage. After John XIII died, his successor Pope Paul VI expanded the pontifical commission, which had theologians, sociologists, obstetricians and social scientists, including a Filipina, Dr. Mercedes Concepcion of the University of the Philippines. (She has since retired from teaching, but remains active in population work, where her surname has not gone unnoticed.)
The commission reviewed Catholic Church documents as well as research on family life. They also interviewed Catholic couples about married life. When conservative papal advisers realized the commission was becoming sympathetic to contraception, they had 12 conservative bishops brought in to sit with the commission. In the end, the commission issued a majority report, supported by 30 of the 35 lay members, 15 of the 19 theologians and nine of the 12 bishops. The commission observed that “the regulation of conception appears necessary for many couples who wish to achieve a responsible, open and reasonable parenthood in today’s circumstances.” The commission even suggested that contraception is a “cultural mission which the Creator has commissioned to men, whom he has made his cooperators.”
The conservatives were alarmed, to say the least. To allow contraception, they advised the Pope, would contradict “Casti Connubii” and undermine the Catholic Church’s doctrinal authority. There were fears as well of the pill bringing about hedonism and state-sponsored family planning. Pope Paul VI eventually set aside the majority report and issued “Humanae Vitae” with this fateful passage (par. 14): “Every matrimonial act must remain open to the transmission of life. To destroy even only partially the significance of intercourse and its end is contradictory to the plan of God and to his will.”
Forty years after “Humanae Vitae,” the debates continue, even as millions of Filipinos’ lives are affected by that encyclical. Many Catholics go about their way using the pill and other “artificial” contraceptives, sometimes on advice of priests and nuns who tell them to follow their conscience. The problem is that many more Filipinos want to space births—through “natural” and “artificial” means—but have no access to services because politicians are held hostage by conservative Catholic bishops and lay people who insist there is no need for family planning.
The tyranny of a conservative minority produced “Humanae Vitae.” Today, a vocal minority seeks to impose an order even more stringent than “Humanae Vitae” in blocking any form of family planning, as well as a discussion of the broader issues around sexuality and human life which the pontifical commission had handled so well.
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Email: mtan@inquirer.com.ph
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