COMMENTARY: Looking back at the birth control encyclical after 30 years

c. 1998 Religion News Service (Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a sociologist at the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center. Check out his home page at http://www.agreeley.com or contact him via e-mail at agreel(at)aol.com.) UNDATED _ There were no solemn high celebrations last week of the 30th anniversary […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a sociologist at the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center. Check out his home page at http://www.agreeley.com or contact him via e-mail at agreel(at)aol.com.)

UNDATED _ There were no solemn high celebrations last week of the 30th anniversary of Paul VI’s encyclical barring Roman Catholics from using contraceptives.


A few bishops blamed birth control for every sexual problem of our time except clerical pedophilia. There was also the routine blaming of theologians for the rejection of the encyclical, as if ordinary Catholics read or listen to theologians. One bishop said he believed Catholic laity were beginning to accept the teaching of the encyclical, an assertion for which there is no proof at all.

Yet, except for that bishop’s claim, there did seem to be a willingness to admit most Catholics ignore Paul VI’s ruling.

It is useful to recall the sequence of events which led up to the encyclical.

At the second session of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul, apparently not trusting his fellow bishops on the issue, withdrew the subject of birth control from discussion and established a special commission of theologians and some bishops to investigate the problem.

In the mid-1960s the birth control pill had become available and Catholics _ clergy and laity, even some conservatives _ were caught up in the euphoria of change which the Vatican Council had generated. The conviction was widespread that the church could change anything it wanted to change. The establishment of the pope’s commission seemed to indicate change was possible. The lay people began to use the pill and the clergy began to tell them they should follow their consciences on birth control.

The commission sent its report to the pope in 1966. To the surprise of many, the report argued _ in the spirit of the times _ that change was, indeed, possible. Some of its members returned home and told people to prepare for change. The full text of the report was leaked to the media. It seemed that a change on birth control was a done deal. The pope, who had a hard time making up his mind, vacillated for two years as conservative members of the Curia brought enormous pressure on him. A change, they said, would weaken papal authority.

Finally, in July of 1968 he issued his decision in which he rejected the recommendation of his commission _ though he did not directly respond to their arguments.


The two-year delay had been fatal. Clergy and laity had made up their minds. The pope was not so much telling the married laity they could not start using the pill, but that they had to stop. The lay people, supported by their clergy, refused to accept his decision. The laity appealed to a God they believed understood from the decision of a pope they felt did not understand.

The laity’s disillusion with what appeared to be the pope’s insensitivity to the problems of married people led to their rejection of the right of the church to impose rules on birth control.

I do not argue this reaction was proper. I merely argue, based on the research many of us did then and since, that this was in fact the reaction. If the pope had intended to continue the teaching of Pius XI in 1930, he should never have established the commission or he should have rejected its decision promptly. In the heady atmosphere of the years immediately after the Council, the delay and then the rejection caused profound disillusion.

Mass attendance, for example, had increased after the Council; after the encyclical it fell drastically. Similarly, the large exodus from the priesthood and the religious life began only after the encyclical. Many of the negative effects which are attributed to the Council were in fact caused by the encyclical. The Council was responsible only in that it heightened people’s expectation of change.

Paul VI was horrified by the negative reaction to his encyclical. It is clear in retrospect that he did not understand the dynamics of the Catholic population at the time. He expected obedience; he created disillusion and anger and a decision based on a desire to preserve papal credibility, in fact, damaged it badly.

I am not addressing the morality of birth control. Rather, I am analyzing the impact of the encyclical. One may well argue the pope was right and the laity and lower clergy were wrong. However, no one any more seems willing to argue that the encyclical was accepted by the Catholic population.


END GREELEY

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