Fifty years ago Pope Paul VI published an encyclical letter on the transmission of human life, known commonly by the first two words of the Latin text, Humanae Vitae.
The Pope wrote that letter to resist the sexual revolution by declaring the use of birth control pills to be immoral, even for married couples. But very few people have actually read the full text of that letter. So I encourage you to look up Humanae Vitae online this week, and read the short text in one sitting, a task which will take only a few minutes.
Humanae Vitae is a brief statement of the Church’s belief that the revealed Word of God teaches us the full truth about love, marriage and sexuality; and in the context of that revelation, the Church has always known that it is contrary to human dignity and to the purposes of marriage, to attempt to have sexual intimacy, while also intending to prevent the possibility of conceiving a child. (Cf. Genesis 18:8) For this reason, the use of any means to prevent the conception of a child, including chemicals or sterilization, is always immoral, so too is the use of abortion, whether by chemicals or surgery, to prevent the birth of a child w1ho is already conceived.
Furthermore, as he restated thereby the Church’s ancient and unchangeable teaching, on the beauty, dignity and full meaning of sexual love the Holy Father also described the consequences for any culture which rejects the truths that are woven into our nature by the Creator, truths that are accessible to right reason, and confirmed by divine revelation. Blessed Pope Paul predicted that a contraceptive mentality, if it ever took hold in a culture, would inevitably lead to an increase in adultery and divorce, the weakening of family life, a general increase in sexual immorality, a reluctance to have children, and an assault on the dignity of women, who would be reduced for too many men from life-long spouses in a sacred covenant of love, to objects of sexual desire to be used and discarded, as lust waxes and wanes. In other words, in 1968 Pope Paul VI foresaw the #MeToo moment in our debauched culture, along with all the other sexual confusions of the past fifty years, and the holocaust of contraception and abortion, which is now reaching the level of a civilization-ending catastrophe.
When Humanae Vitae was published in 1968 the Western world was on fire, and almost noone payed attention to the Pope. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy had both been murdered that Spring. Race riots had convulsed many of our great cities, including Washington, Baltimore and Chicago. The streets of Paris were burning with the fevers of revolution and with the violence that always attends such eruptions. The campuses of our elite universities were aflame with protests and the rhetoric of Marxist insurrection. And, three weeks after the publication of Humanae Vitae, the nation watched in horror as the democratic national convention in Chicago descended into a miasma of chaos, incoherence and violence. In effect, the attention of the world was not focused on the small papal encyclical that appeared in July 1968, except, that is, for one odd part of the story. The world, you see, did notice that the Pope’s teaching was immediately rejected as false by no small number of Catholic priests and theologians, many of whom had not actually read the letter before they denounced it in public proclamations. Revolution had come not just to our universities and city streets but to the Church. And the content of Pope Paul’s letter was lost in the storm which was unleashed by the spectacle of priests telling their people to disregard the solemn teaching of the Church, too often with the silent consent of their bishops.
There was an odd coincidence for this fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Humanae Vitae as one of the most influential American bishops of our time is exposed as a homosexualist predator and abuser who for several decades continued to rise ever higher in the Church even as he committed grave sins against boys and young men entrusted to his care as a pastor, a shepherd of Christ’s flock, a successor of the apostles, and a cardinal pledged to shed his blood in defense of the Church. The report of his alleged crimes is sickening and almost beyond comprehension. But, even worse than this man’s personal disgrace, is the failure of the rest of his brother bishops to decry the notoriously well known scandal of his homosexual behavior in the Church, which all of the clergy knew for years. Most bishops have not spoken, and too many of those who have, sounded more like liability lawyers or company spokesmen protecting their interests than like the prophets and apostles who denounce unrighteousness and call God’s people to repentance and conversion, contrition, confession and amendment of life.
The priesthood is a beautiful and essential gift to the Church. And, I believe that celibacy should remain a permanent part of that gift in the Western Church. But, the truth is that the clerical culture in which priests and bishops live is in many ways diseased and deformed, and must be made new by the fire of divine love, and the truth of the Word of God.
I have been a priest of God for over twenty years, and, day after day, despite my own sins, I have done my best to proclaim and explain the gospel of Jesus Christ, including the hard sayings that so many of us have difficulty hearing and accepting. In our time, of course, many of those hard sayings concern sexuality, marriage and family life. But the task of every preacher is to proclaim the gospel in season and out, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, and to call the Church to fidelity to God’s revealed Word. In fulfilling that duty I have never been surprised at the opposition to this task by “the world,” meaning, that part of creation which is in rebellion against the Creator and His eternal plan for our salvation. In fact, a preacher expects opposition to the gospel from the world. But what is not expected is opposition to the gospel from pastors of the Church, most especially from Her bishops, and least of all from members of the sacred college of cardinals. This is among the many reasons why the treason of Theodore McCarrick is a damnable abomination. But while his sins are appalling, they are merely the crimes of one man, a man who is a sinner like all of us, and who is called to conversion, and may yet, we pray, repent and find redemption from his sins in Jesus Christ.
Worse, however, than the sins of one man is the systemic corruption of priests and bishops who do not believe what the Church teaches but continue to preach anyway. They swear at their ordination to teach the gospel as it has been revealed by God and transmitted in the Church, but then with a wink and a nudge they encourage cynical disregard for the revealed truth of God’s eternal Word and create a new religion of their own devising, a faith that will not disturb the indulgence of their ambition and lust and which encourages the people of God to disregard the solemn and sacred truths about love, marriage, sex and the gift of children. In retrospect, we should not have been surprised that the fiftieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae would be interrupted by the obscenities of a fallen bishop and cardinal which would bring scandal to the universal Church and encourage derision of the priesthood around the world. No. The sorry tale of bishops and priests who harm others by false doctrine or evil conduct, or both, is summed up in the miserable life of Ted McCarrick, and helps explain better than I ever could, how and why the beautiful truth taught by Blessed Pope Paul VI fifty years ago was rejected by so many people, even bishops and priests of the Church.
I expect that in the weeks ahead there will be more misery, more stories in the press, more accusations of misconduct by the clergy, and it will all be sickening. But, while the filfth continues to spill out, we must all cry out with Saint Paul, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith, as it is written: ‘he who through faith is righteous shall live.’” But, while we are never ashamed of the gospel, we should always expect shame to accompany the disclosure of the sins of bishops and priests. And we must be mindful that the only one who profits from those shameful sins is the Father of Lies. Strike the shepherd, scatter the sheep. Discredit the messenger and you discredit the message! That is the strategy of our ancient Enemy, the fallen one, who does not want us to hear and heed the Word of God. But friends we are at war, war with principalities and powers, and we must not be deceived by Satan’s lies.
Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Ted McCarrick from the college of cardinals and has imposed on him a hidden life of prayer and penance while the charges against him are reviewed and the Pope decides what to do with him. If the Church’s investigation convicts him of his alleged crimes McCarrick will be laicized, or, as the press usually puts it, “defrocked.” Every bishop whose advancement he promoted should also be scrutinized to ensure that this homosexual corruption of the Church does not continue. We also should make plans right now for what we can do to help heal and reform the Church. As the scriptures for today’s Mass teach us, what we have to offer is never enough. But, with God’s grace there is always more than a sufficiency to meet our needs. And so, here’s what I suggest.
First, read Humanae Vitae, this week, and then change whatever in your life must be changed to live according to God’s plan for marriage and sexuality.
Second, study part three of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, called, “Life in Christ.” Part three includes a concise explanation of each of the ten commandments and places the drama of our moral choices directly in the center of living a virtuous life of grace through faith in the Son of God.
Third, decide right now to go to Mass every Sunday with your whole family, and, when possible, every day. “I am the bread of life, says the Lord. He who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall not thirst.” When we come to receive the most holy Eucharist worthily, we are strengthened by God’s grace to live the law of love through an authentic gift of self, especially in the holy love of marriage.
Furthermore, as he restated thereby the Church’s ancient and unchangeable teaching, on the beauty, dignity and full meaning of sexual love the Holy Father also described the consequences for any culture which rejects the truths that are woven into our nature by the Creator, truths that are accessible to right reason, and confirmed by divine revelation. Blessed Pope Paul predicted that a contraceptive mentality, if it ever took hold in a culture, would inevitably lead to an increase in adultery and divorce, the weakening of family life, a general increase in sexual immorality, a reluctance to have children, and an assault on the dignity of women, who would be reduced for too many men from life-long spouses in a sacred covenant of love, to objects of sexual desire to be used and discarded, as lust waxes and wanes. In other words, in 1968 Pope Paul VI foresaw the #MeToo moment in our debauched culture, along with all the other sexual confusions of the past fifty years, and the holocaust of contraception and abortion, which is now reaching the level of a civilization-ending catastrophe.
When Humanae Vitae was published in 1968 the Western world was on fire, and almost noone payed attention to the Pope. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy had both been murdered that Spring. Race riots had convulsed many of our great cities, including Washington, Baltimore and Chicago. The streets of Paris were burning with the fevers of revolution and with the violence that always attends such eruptions. The campuses of our elite universities were aflame with protests and the rhetoric of Marxist insurrection. And, three weeks after the publication of Humanae Vitae, the nation watched in horror as the democratic national convention in Chicago descended into a miasma of chaos, incoherence and violence. In effect, the attention of the world was not focused on the small papal encyclical that appeared in July 1968, except, that is, for one odd part of the story. The world, you see, did notice that the Pope’s teaching was immediately rejected as false by no small number of Catholic priests and theologians, many of whom had not actually read the letter before they denounced it in public proclamations. Revolution had come not just to our universities and city streets but to the Church. And the content of Pope Paul’s letter was lost in the storm which was unleashed by the spectacle of priests telling their people to disregard the solemn teaching of the Church, too often with the silent consent of their bishops.
There was an odd coincidence for this fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Humanae Vitae as one of the most influential American bishops of our time is exposed as a homosexualist predator and abuser who for several decades continued to rise ever higher in the Church even as he committed grave sins against boys and young men entrusted to his care as a pastor, a shepherd of Christ’s flock, a successor of the apostles, and a cardinal pledged to shed his blood in defense of the Church. The report of his alleged crimes is sickening and almost beyond comprehension. But, even worse than this man’s personal disgrace, is the failure of the rest of his brother bishops to decry the notoriously well known scandal of his homosexual behavior in the Church, which all of the clergy knew for years. Most bishops have not spoken, and too many of those who have, sounded more like liability lawyers or company spokesmen protecting their interests than like the prophets and apostles who denounce unrighteousness and call God’s people to repentance and conversion, contrition, confession and amendment of life.
The priesthood is a beautiful and essential gift to the Church. And, I believe that celibacy should remain a permanent part of that gift in the Western Church. But, the truth is that the clerical culture in which priests and bishops live is in many ways diseased and deformed, and must be made new by the fire of divine love, and the truth of the Word of God.
I have been a priest of God for over twenty years, and, day after day, despite my own sins, I have done my best to proclaim and explain the gospel of Jesus Christ, including the hard sayings that so many of us have difficulty hearing and accepting. In our time, of course, many of those hard sayings concern sexuality, marriage and family life. But the task of every preacher is to proclaim the gospel in season and out, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, and to call the Church to fidelity to God’s revealed Word. In fulfilling that duty I have never been surprised at the opposition to this task by “the world,” meaning, that part of creation which is in rebellion against the Creator and His eternal plan for our salvation. In fact, a preacher expects opposition to the gospel from the world. But what is not expected is opposition to the gospel from pastors of the Church, most especially from Her bishops, and least of all from members of the sacred college of cardinals. This is among the many reasons why the treason of Theodore McCarrick is a damnable abomination. But while his sins are appalling, they are merely the crimes of one man, a man who is a sinner like all of us, and who is called to conversion, and may yet, we pray, repent and find redemption from his sins in Jesus Christ.
Worse, however, than the sins of one man is the systemic corruption of priests and bishops who do not believe what the Church teaches but continue to preach anyway. They swear at their ordination to teach the gospel as it has been revealed by God and transmitted in the Church, but then with a wink and a nudge they encourage cynical disregard for the revealed truth of God’s eternal Word and create a new religion of their own devising, a faith that will not disturb the indulgence of their ambition and lust and which encourages the people of God to disregard the solemn and sacred truths about love, marriage, sex and the gift of children. In retrospect, we should not have been surprised that the fiftieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae would be interrupted by the obscenities of a fallen bishop and cardinal which would bring scandal to the universal Church and encourage derision of the priesthood around the world. No. The sorry tale of bishops and priests who harm others by false doctrine or evil conduct, or both, is summed up in the miserable life of Ted McCarrick, and helps explain better than I ever could, how and why the beautiful truth taught by Blessed Pope Paul VI fifty years ago was rejected by so many people, even bishops and priests of the Church.
I expect that in the weeks ahead there will be more misery, more stories in the press, more accusations of misconduct by the clergy, and it will all be sickening. But, while the filfth continues to spill out, we must all cry out with Saint Paul, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith, as it is written: ‘he who through faith is righteous shall live.’” But, while we are never ashamed of the gospel, we should always expect shame to accompany the disclosure of the sins of bishops and priests. And we must be mindful that the only one who profits from those shameful sins is the Father of Lies. Strike the shepherd, scatter the sheep. Discredit the messenger and you discredit the message! That is the strategy of our ancient Enemy, the fallen one, who does not want us to hear and heed the Word of God. But friends we are at war, war with principalities and powers, and we must not be deceived by Satan’s lies.
Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Ted McCarrick from the college of cardinals and has imposed on him a hidden life of prayer and penance while the charges against him are reviewed and the Pope decides what to do with him. If the Church’s investigation convicts him of his alleged crimes McCarrick will be laicized, or, as the press usually puts it, “defrocked.” Every bishop whose advancement he promoted should also be scrutinized to ensure that this homosexual corruption of the Church does not continue. We also should make plans right now for what we can do to help heal and reform the Church. As the scriptures for today’s Mass teach us, what we have to offer is never enough. But, with God’s grace there is always more than a sufficiency to meet our needs. And so, here’s what I suggest.
First, read Humanae Vitae, this week, and then change whatever in your life must be changed to live according to God’s plan for marriage and sexuality.
Second, study part three of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, called, “Life in Christ.” Part three includes a concise explanation of each of the ten commandments and places the drama of our moral choices directly in the center of living a virtuous life of grace through faith in the Son of God.
Third, decide right now to go to Mass every Sunday with your whole family, and, when possible, every day. “I am the bread of life, says the Lord. He who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall not thirst.” When we come to receive the most holy Eucharist worthily, we are strengthened by God’s grace to live the law of love through an authentic gift of self, especially in the holy love of marriage.
Forth, we should go to Confession regularly, even every week, and subject our lives to a ruthlessly honest examination of conscience in the light of God’s revealed Word.
And finally, pray for those, all those, who stumble and fall, including bishops and priests. “All men have sinned, and are deprived of the glory of God.” This is the heart of the gospel. And this is why we need the Savior. And, while the sins of the clergy should always disappoint us, they should never surprise us. After all, even those who have been justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ discover that the mystery of lawlessness remains strong and active in their hearts. That is why Saint Paul says “that henceforward you are not to walk as the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind, having their understanding clouded in darkness, estranged from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart. For they have given themselves up in despair to sensuality, greedily practicing every kind of uncleanness.” (Ephesians 4: 17-20) My friends, “ecclesia semper reformanda et purificanda.” The Church is always in need of being reformed and purified, because everyone in the Church is a sinner in need of being reformed and purified, including priests and bishops, starting with priests and bishops. Starting, in fact, with you and me. “[You]...have heard of [Christ] and have been taught in him (as truth is in Jesus) that as regards your former manner of life you are to put off the old man, which is being corrupted through its deceptive lusts. But be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, which has been created according to God in justice and holiness of truth.” (Ephesians 4: 22-24).
This October, Blessed Pope Paul the Sixth will be canonized, acknowledged as being now among the angels and saints who worship the Lamb once slain who lives forever. Pope Paul’s prophetic words remain a sure path through the wreckage of the sexual revolution to a life of authentic and fruitful love, a life made possible by grace through faith in God the Son.
On the fiftieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae God be praised for His infinite mercy, for His unconditional love, for His redeeming grace, and for the freedom from sin and the grave revealed by the death and resurrection of the Son of Mary, the Word made flesh, the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the One Who is, Who was and Who is to come, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And finally, pray for those, all those, who stumble and fall, including bishops and priests. “All men have sinned, and are deprived of the glory of God.” This is the heart of the gospel. And this is why we need the Savior. And, while the sins of the clergy should always disappoint us, they should never surprise us. After all, even those who have been justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ discover that the mystery of lawlessness remains strong and active in their hearts. That is why Saint Paul says “that henceforward you are not to walk as the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind, having their understanding clouded in darkness, estranged from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart. For they have given themselves up in despair to sensuality, greedily practicing every kind of uncleanness.” (Ephesians 4: 17-20) My friends, “ecclesia semper reformanda et purificanda.” The Church is always in need of being reformed and purified, because everyone in the Church is a sinner in need of being reformed and purified, including priests and bishops, starting with priests and bishops. Starting, in fact, with you and me. “[You]...have heard of [Christ] and have been taught in him (as truth is in Jesus) that as regards your former manner of life you are to put off the old man, which is being corrupted through its deceptive lusts. But be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, which has been created according to God in justice and holiness of truth.” (Ephesians 4: 22-24).
This October, Blessed Pope Paul the Sixth will be canonized, acknowledged as being now among the angels and saints who worship the Lamb once slain who lives forever. Pope Paul’s prophetic words remain a sure path through the wreckage of the sexual revolution to a life of authentic and fruitful love, a life made possible by grace through faith in God the Son.
On the fiftieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae God be praised for His infinite mercy, for His unconditional love, for His redeeming grace, and for the freedom from sin and the grave revealed by the death and resurrection of the Son of Mary, the Word made flesh, the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the One Who is, Who was and Who is to come, the Lord Jesus Christ.
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