Self-giving Love
Humanae Vitae’s paradoxical wisdom
Part Three in a Series
By Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted
The Catholic Sun
Over the past few weeks, I have written about the paradoxical
wisdom of Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae, and of the
way John Paul II gave a fuller and more convincing explanation
to this prophetic document in his Theology of the Body. We have
considered the nature of married love, namely that to be authentic
it must be total, i.e. the unitive meaning and the procreative
meaning always belong together. Something has gone seriously wrong
when a husband or wife says, “I give you everything except
my fertility;” or “I accept you entirely except for
your fertility.” On the other hand, immense blessings come
to couples that follow God’s plan for marriage and, when
appropriate, practice Natural Family Planning (NFP).
Now, in part three of this series, it might be helpful to consider
some questions that are frequently asked about Humanae Vitae,
NFP and related issues. Many of these are related to the important
question of conscience.
Following my Conscience
What if a couple does not agree with this teaching of the Church?
Shouldn’t they follow their own consciences? What if a priest
says not to worry about this? Is it true that this is just man-made
teaching?
These questions deserve thoughtful consideration, for as the Second
Vatican Council taught in Gaudium Et Spes (#16), “Deep within
his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon
himself but which he must obey… His conscience is man’s
most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God
whose voice echoes in his depths.”
To follow our conscience is to be true to this secret core of
our soul where God’s voice echoes. Our very dignity as persons
demands this conformity with our own conscience; it is unworthy
of us merely to follow the fashions of the time or to go along
with what others are doing without thoughtful reflection and firm
decision of our own.
Forming my Conscience
Before following our conscience, we must form it in accord with
the voice of God. Our conscience is not the origin of truth. Truth
lies outside us; it exists independent of us and must be discovered
through constant effort of mind and heart. This is no easy task
for us who suffer the effects of original sin and must contend
with the constant temptations of the devil. Recall the clarion
summons of St. Peter (I Pet 5:8-9), “Stay sober and alert.
Your opponent the devil is prowling like a roaring lion looking
for someone to devour. Resist him, solid in your faith.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (#1783) teaches, “Conscience
must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. A well-informed
conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments
according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by
the wisdom of the Creator. The education of conscience is indispensable
for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and
tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative
teachings.”
As we see, to form one’s conscience well and to follow it
with integrity is no small task. For a person’s conscience
cannot invent what is true and good. It must search it out beyond
itself. When acting correctly, we discover the truth through the
grace of the Holy Spirit and the help of God’s word handed
down to us in the Church. Then, when we submit our conscience
to this objective truth, we act uprightly and grow to maturity
in Christ.
An Erroneous Conscience
Sadly, as everyone knows, we humans do not always make good choices;
we do not always form our consciences appropriately or we simply
do not follow them. We can fail to make the effort to seek out
what is true and good; we can be blinded by habitual sins or by
the prevailing errors of our time. As the Catechism says (#1786),
“Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a
right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or,
on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them.”
Humanae Vitae and the Theology of the Body, like all teaching
of the Church on faith and morals, are reliable sources for forming
our consciences in accord with the truth. If a couple decides
to act contrary to these, they are acting contrary to the wisdom
of the Church, which teaches with the light of the Holy Spirit.
Paul VI, in Humanae Vitae #20, wrote, “The teaching of the
Church about the proper spacing of children is a promulgation
of the divine law itself.”
It could happen that a person, in mistaken yet good faith, acts
contrary to this teaching. While a person with an erroneous conscience
may not be culpable personally because of “invincible ignorance,”
nonetheless the actions carried out as a result still cause great
harm. “If… the ignorance is invincible, or the moral
subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil
committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no
less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work
to correct the errors of moral conscience”(Catechism, 1793).
Let me illustrate this point by means of a parallel example. A
mechanic, because he has not been given sufficient training, fails
to replace a small but essential part of an airplane’s engine.
Because of this failure, the plane crashes and all the passengers
are killed. The mechanic is not guilty of the evil since he did
not intend to cause it, yet the consequences are disastrous.
You and I are called to train ourselves to see correctly all that
is at stake in our choices. Even if not guilty for a wrong that
occurs, the wrong will still have harmful consequences.
We do well to follow the advice of the Church found in the Catechism
(#1785), “In the formation of conscience the Word of God
is the light for our path; we must assimilate it in faith and
prayer and put it into practice. We must also examine our conscience
before the Lord’s Cross. We are assisted by the gifts of
the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advice of others and
guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church.”
In the past 40 years, the failure to heed the teaching of Humanae
Vitae has brought great suffering to many married couples and
families. It has harmed the very fabric of our society. Perhaps
these wrong actions were not culpable because of ignorance but
the harm does not for that reason disappear. Now is the time for
couples to consider again, or for the first time, the paradoxical
wisdom of the Church on issues of married love and fertility.
Copyright 2005 The Catholic Sun.
