Humanae vitae dissent - is it heresy?

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I do not think that the average Catholic in the pew considers it “on a very deep personal level”. They just flatly say “we don’t agree with that”, and proceed to do what they want to.
I think you should reconsider this dismissal on “a very deep personal level.”
the typical Catholic probably never experiences a grave temptation to rob a bank (a sin of the world) or to worship Satan (a sin of the devil). But temptations of the flesh, often grave temptations, are part and parcel of the lives of almost everyone
What temptation of the flesh lead anyone away from following Humanae Vitae? It is usually a more complex consideration, having to do with the desire for children, choices in life, relationships, etc. Presuming we are talking about a married couple, of course. Use of it in a nonmarital situation is a less complex situation, though it can easily lead to desensitizing, as you say.

I agree that most people are poorly catechized on this. They are taught that this is an external demand that does not line up with their lives. It seems like a threat that that bears little relationship to the hopes and dreams of being in love.
 
I think you should reconsider this dismissal on “a very deep personal level.”
No doubt some do give it serious and prayerful thought. But I think this is the exception rather than the rule. I don’t think most married couples in our time give Humanae vitae a second thought.
What temptation of the flesh lead anyone away from following Humanae Vitae ?
The desire to have sex on demand without the consequences, and a mode of sexual expression that is displeasing to Almighty God (i.e., sex deliberately divorced from the possibility of new life) as opposed to abstaining — even if it has to be for a protracted length of time — when they’d rather not abstain. Put another way, the desire for mutual self-pleasuring, which is what contraception really is.
 
The thing is that they just didn’t keep it to a way of dealing with penitents in the confessional. They proclaimed it to groups of young people like me in the early 70s at discussion groups when I was in university.

When a priest told me and 40-50 of my peers that using birth control was OK as long as both parties felt there was a good reason to delay pregnancy do you honestly think that when the time came for me to marry that I researched it any further? Of course not.
Waving my hand in the air as someone badly mis-catechized during early adulthood, AND marriage prep, and included being advised that a vasectomy was ok. This didn’t change until later in life (after husband’s vasectomy) when I finally did further research and realized how messed up our catechesis was. Another one of those regrets that I have to live with…
 
No doubt some do give it serious and prayerful thought. But I think this is the exception rather than the rule. I don’t think most married couples in our time give Humanae vitae a second thought.
I think you are correct. Quite honestly most Catholic married couples in the area I live have not even heard of Humanae vitae and I suspect in many places this is the case. Most know the Church is opposed to birth control but have no idea why or that anything has ever been written about it. Most Catholics world wide are not on this website or other Catholic websites and do not have the knowledge of where to seek out answers to questions. Many obey out of obedience, some try but find it difficult so they give up, and the rest just do what they think is right for them. It’s not just that with with birth control. It’s just about every issue that we face in life. You have to remember, most Catholics don’t live in the western world
 
Does dissent from the Church’s teaching on contraception (as in Humanae vitae ) make one a heretic?
I believe there is some space between dissent from a formal teaching, and heresy. Disagreeing with HV clearly puts one in dissent. But it seems to me that most Catholics dissent from one or another teaching of the Church. I seem to remember learning that dissenting from the statements in the Creed is heretical. I don’t think dissent from teachings on morals is necessarily heretical - but perhaps someone with a more in-depth understanding of the canonical definition of heresy can say.
 
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From Catholic Radio and another source, I learned the following. Seminarians in the 1970s were told about Humanae Vitae, and that its teaching might change in the future. Further reference was made to this time period: “Things went nuts in seminaries in the 1970s.” Later, when priests were asked about contraception, they told parishioners that it was a personal conscience decision. The seeds of confusion were sown. Dissidents inside Catholic schools made sure that proper Catechesis would disappear, to be replaced with a version that was more to their liking.

Within 24 hours after the publication of Humanae Vitae, it was attacked in what was described as “an event unprecedented in the history of the Church…”

http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/a_great_battle_for_love_and_the_family
 
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When a priest told me and 40-50 of my peers that using birth control was OK as long as both parties felt there was a good reason to delay pregnancy
I thought birth control was a mortal sin, in the sense of grave matter. Does this mean then that there are exceptions?
 
There are no exceptions except for a few medical conditions. From Humanae Vitae:

Lawful Therapeutic Means

15. On the other hand, the Church does not consider at all illicit the use of those therapeutic means necessary to cure bodily diseases, even if a foreseeable impediment to procreation should result there from—provided such impediment is not directly intended for any motive whatsoever. (19)
 
Of the teachings I’ve been dealt personally, not to mention what I’ve read, I can’t find anything but objection to contraception within the Catholic church. I now have a complete and young family (i.e. very dependent & very expensive) and I am very, very, very reluctantly open to additional life, but also very frightened by the thought of another person to care for at this stage in my life. My wife and I have used contraception in the past and I know it’s wrong and I’ve confessed it, I’ve also considered a vasectomy, however the mutilation of this body that God has given me coupled with the permanence, not to mention it being a sin are the reasons I’ve refrained from going through. NFP is far from perfect, my wife would not exist if it worked for her parents and it removes the spontaneity of love making to the point of being another chore (for my wife anyway). Her very, very low sex drive changes only when she is most fertile, along with a long period and seemingly instant fertility puts us both in a very awkward position as to how to move forward trying to do the right thing.
 
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Actually, no it doesn’t.
If you read that document carefully, it says that there is no evidence the Vatican ‘ever gave permission for the use of contraceptives’ in this scenario (no actual date or place given, either).

Check this out from Church Militant:
Paul VI, a great man, in a difficult situation in Africa, permitted nuns to use contraceptives in cases of rape. … On the other hand, avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil. In certain cases, as in this one, or in the one I mentioned of Bd. Paul VI, it was clear.
Theologians agree that incidental historical facts are not a matter of papal infallibility. Cardinal Robert Sarah, head of the Congregation for Divine Worship, shed light on this point.
If the Pope speaks about the economy or politics, it is not his field of expertise. He can offer his vision or opinion, but it’s not dogma. He can err. If he speaks about the environment, the climate, the economy, immigrants, etc., he is working from information that may be correct, or mistaken.
And indeed, serious historians say that the story about Bd. Pope Paul VI and the Congolese nuns is a false one.

They agree there is no paper trail substantiating such a claim of papal approval for contraception. There’s no document to prove that any pope ever approved of nuns using contraceptives, whether in the Congo, Bosnia or elsewhere.

What historians do allude to is a 1961 [position paper published in the journal Catholic Studies, long before Paul VI ascended to the See of Peter The paper was written by three theologians asking the hypothetical question whether missionary sisters in danger of being of raped — like those in the Congo of Africa — could morally protect themselves with the use of douches after a rape had occurred. The authors’ answer was in the affirmative.

The position paper was never publicly corrected, which led some to believe it had gained tacit approval by the Vatican. But as noted, the paper was written two years before Abp Giovanni Montini became Pope Paul VI. [Pope St. John XXIII was actually the Roman Pontiff at the time, thus it goes without saying that Paul VI shouldn’t be viewed as the one whose silence meant consent — a principle to which some theologians take exception.

One of the three theologians who co-authored the 1961 position paper was the late Cdl. Pietro Palazzini. In a 1993 article published in [La Repubblica, Cdl. Palazzini explained the point of the paper.

“What I argued many years ago in Catholic Studies, and I repeat today,” he wrote, “is that women victims of violence, whether nuns or laity, may prevent pregnancy by acting in the hours immediately after the rape, prior to new life being born.” In such cases, he advocated the use of douches to eliminate the rapist’s sperm from the victim’s body.

In the same article, when asked about this very topic, then-Vatican spokesman Msgr. Piero Pennacchini affirmed, "The Holy See has never published any texts authorizing religious to take contraceptives, even though they run the risk of being raped."
 
Seminarians in the 1970s were told about Humanae Vitae, and that its teaching might change in the future. Further reference was made to this time period: “Things went nuts in seminaries in the 1970s.”
Birth control came up in discussions at the Council, but Paul VI felt it needed furher study. He formed a commission that looked at it and decided the teaching ahould be changed. With Humanae Vitae Paul Vi decided not to follow the commission’s recommendation.

I say this only to point out how ridiculous your account is. A papally appointed commission indicated that the teaching should change, so it is not surprising that it was taught that way in seminaries in the following years. It was not some group of out of control philosophers and theologians calling the Pope a heretic, but people the Pope had chosen who came to a different decision.
 
Do you have a source for this? Dissidents were putting pressure on Pope Paul VI. Within 24 hours after publication, Catholic theologians would voice their dissent. A full page ad was taken out in the New York Times. From Humanae Vitae:

Special Studies

5. The consciousness of the same responsibility induced Us to confirm and expand the commission set up by Our predecessor Pope John XXIII, of happy memory, in March, 1963. This commission included married couples as well as many experts in the various fields pertinent to these questions. Its task was to examine views and opinions concerning married life, and especially on the correct regulation of births; and it was also to provide the teaching authority of the Church with such evidence as would enable it to give an apt reply in this matter, which not only the faithful but also the rest of the world were waiting for. (5)

"When the evidence of the experts had been received, as well as the opinions and advice of a considerable number of Our brethren in the episcopate—some of whom sent their views spontaneously, while others were requested by Us to do so—We were in a position to weigh with more precision all the aspects of this complex subject. Hence We are deeply grateful to all those concerned.

The Magisterium’s Reply

6. However, the conclusions arrived at by the commission could not be considered by Us as definitive and absolutely certain, dispensing Us from the duty of examining personally this serious question. This was all the more necessary because, within the commission itself, there was not complete agreement concerning the moral norms to be proposed, and especially because certain approaches and criteria for a solution to this question had emerged which were at variance with the moral doctrine on marriage constantly taught by the magisterium of the Church.

“Consequently, now that We have sifted carefully the evidence sent to Us and intently studied the whole matter, as well as prayed constantly to God, We, by virtue of the mandate entrusted to Us by Christ, intend to give Our reply to this series of grave questions.”
 
Do you have a source for this? Dissidents were putting pressure on Pope Paul VI. Within 24 hours after publication, Catholic theologians would voice their dissent.
Doesn’t your quote confirm what I said?
the commission set up by Our predecessor Pope John XXIII, of happy memory, in March, 1963. This commission included married couples as well as many experts in the various fields pertinent to these questions. Its task was to examine views and opinions concerning married life, and especially on the correct regulation of births; and it was also to provide the teaching authority of the Church with such evidence as would enable it to give an apt reply in this matter, which not only the faithful but also the rest of the world were waiting for.
Where are the alleged dissidents putting pressure on the Pope? Is it the commission, picked by John XXIII and Paul VI?
the conclusions arrived at by the commission could not be considered by Us as definitive and absolutely certain
Pope Paul VI disagreed wth the commission, as I said. Does that mean the people who offered their opinion WHEN THEY WERE ASKED are dissidents? And that those who agreed with their opinions were “nuts”?

Thank you for answering your question. I am not sure what more I can add.
 
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