Re:humanae vitae

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Dismas2004:
All encyclicals … are not bound by Canon law to read nor follow them.
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This is terribly incorrect. By what authority do you make such a claim?

In addition to Pope Pius IX’s statement I quoted above, consider also the following…

Pope Pius XII:
Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, … **these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: “He who heareth you, heareth me” **(Humani Generis, 20)
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Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium :
Bishops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are to be respected by all as witnesses to divine and Catholic truth. In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking. (LG, 25)
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Code of Canon Law
Can. 752 While the assent of faith is not required, a religious submission of intellect and will is to be given to any doctrine which either the Supreme Pontiff or the College of Bishops, exercising their authentic magisterium, declare upon a matter of faith or morals, even though they do not intend to proclaim that doctrine by definitive act. Christ’s faithful are therefore to ensure that they avoid whatever does not accord with that doctrine.
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Catechism of the Catholic Church:
**892 **Divine assistance is also given to the successors of the apostles, teaching in communion with the successor of Peter, and, in a particular way, to the bishop of Rome, pastor of the whole Church, when, without arriving at an infallible definition and without pronouncing in a “definitive manner,” they propose in the exercise of the ordinary Magisterium a teaching that leads to better understanding of Revelation in matters of faith and morals. To this ordinary teaching the faithful "are to adhere to it with religious assent" which, though distinct from the assent of faith, is nonetheless an extension of it.
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What is an exercise of the Ordinary Magisterium?
MAGISTERIUM, ORDINARY. The teaching office of the hierarchy under the Pope, exercised normally, that is, ***through the regular means of instructing the faithful. ***These means are all the usual channels of communication, whether written, spoken, or practical. When the ordinary magisterium is also universal, that is, collectively intended for all the faithful, it is also infallible. (Fr. John Hardon, *Pocket Catholic Dictionary, *“Magisterium, Ordinary”)
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Code:
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philjane:
was this encyclical an infallible document? I believed that it was but i was listening to a tape last night that said it wasn’t
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Are you sure you want to open this can of worms?

Antonio 😃
 
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itsjustdave1988:
It’s not credentials and power that’s important, but **plenary power divinely bestowed on the Roman Pontiff by Christ the Lord Himself of feeding, ruling, and governing the universal Church. **It is a charism from God, such that whatever the magisterium teaches as absolutely true, is to be understood as absolutely true, without doubt.
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The magesterium says the Pope is infallible because the magisterium says it is and says that I should believe it. Make no mistake about it; I have a lot of respect for the Church and her ability to stay intact for 2000 years. I have no problem with it that others buy into this “infallibility” teaching. I believe it is presumptuous for any man, Roman Pontiff or not, to claim anything he says – especially when it is long, detailed and built upon many vague concepts – can be known to be without error. Who is the Roman Pontiff’s confessor? I heard he goes to confession every day. Who can forgive his sins if he his specifically qualified by God to do all the ruling.
Even if one were to conclude that the teaching of Humanae Vitae was not a formal dogma of Catholicism, one must still adhere to the teaching with submission of intellect and will. (cf. *Lumen Gentium, *25; see also canon 752 of the Code of Canon Law).
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I can’t will my intellect to submit to something that makes less sense the more it is explained.
No matter how you slice it, there’s no room in Catholic teaching for dissent and disobedience to the teachings of Humanae Vitae.
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I find it fascinating that HV is seen as such an absolute document, but when it comes to valid reasons for avoiding children it is very relative, and even specifically allows finances to be taken into consideration. That means that God says it’s OK to try not to have this child He might have planned for you, if you think you don’t have enough money to pay for it. This almost looks like a loophole that could be exploited for expedience to win over faith. The document is very relative by its very nature and lends itself to interpretation in some of its terms but not others. It’s just that the particular terms I personally disagree with aren’t the ones HV itself considers relative.

Alan
 
The magesterium says the Pope is infallible because the magisterium says it is and says that I should believe it.
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No. You should believe it for the very same reason you should believe anything about Christianity. Faith.

Can I prove that you should have faith? No. There’s many converging clues which make such faith reasonable, but it cannot be proven in the strict sense of the word. That’s why it’s called faith.

St. Augustine explains why he remains Catholic …
… there are many other things which most justly keep me in [the Catholic Church]. The consent of peoples and nations keeps me in the Church; so does her authority, inaugurated by miracles, nourished by hope, enlarged by love, established by age. The succession of priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after His resurrection, gave it in charge to feed His sheep, down to the present episcopate. And so, lastly, does the name itself of Catholic, which, not without reason, amid so many heresies, the Church has thus retained; so that, though all heretics wish to be called Catholics, yet when a stranger asks where the Catholic Church meets, no heretic will venture to point to his own chapel or house. Such then in number and importance are the precious ties belonging to the Christian name which keep a believer in the Catholic Church, as it is right they should … if the truth is so clearly proved as to leave no possibility of doubt, it must be set before all the things that keep me in the Catholic Church; but if there is only a promise without any fulfillment, no one shall move me from the faith which binds my mind with ties so many and so strong to the Christian religion.

… But should you meet with a person not yet believing the gospel, how would you reply to him were he to say, I do not believe? For my part,** I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church.**

(St. Augustine, Against the Epistle of Manichaeus Called Fundamental, Ch. 4 & 5, A.D. 397]
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Alan,

Do you believe in supernatural revelation? Do you believe that God revealed himself and his plan for us slowly and gradually throughout time, and the material aspect of that revelation completed its development with the general revelation of Jesus Christ as handed on to the apostles?

If so, why?
 
look, this isn’t that complicated. the catechism teaches that the use of contraceptives is a mortal sin (intrinsically evil 2370 CCC). the church can’t err in matters of faith and morals. since this is a matter of morals and not dicsipline, it is infallible. didn’t the pope write HV in a teaching postion and not as an opinon?
 
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jimmy:
I was just talking to a priest tonight that said contraception is still being debated among the bishops. This priest seems like he is very knowledgable. He was talking about Humanae vitae and he said that Paul set up a commision of theologians to examine the issue of contraception. This comission said that contraception was OK. He overruled them and said the opposite.
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The bishops can debate away. And you are correct; many are still cranky about Humanae Vitae. But the case is settled. One hesitates to engage in trumpsmanship but Roma locuta est; causa finita est.
 
mercygate said:
*Humanae Vitae *simply (well, not so simply!) restates the age-old teaching of the Church on the regulation of births. As you probably know, it was not until 1930 that ANY Christian body accepted contraception for any reason whatever.

This document, a brilliant encomium on human dignity, bases its teaching in both natural and moral law, neither of which are mutable by the Church. Thus, the teaching is infallible.

I would be very interested in learning why the tape you were listening to indicated that it is not, as I believe this is a commonly held view.
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I don’t know why the tape indicated this, i went back to listen to the tape & the tape is defective (for more than one reason). It was a tape that a parish used in teaching RCIA & i told the sister in our parish that i would give it to her—i hadn’t listened to it so i decided to listen to it before i gave it to her—she is quite modern in her beliefs so i am glad that i didn’t give it to her. I am just going to tell her that when i listened to the tape it was defective & stopped playing.
 
I’m just a common man, and I think if the Pope wants to say that some proclamation is infallible, then I think he should have the courtesy to say so.

Nevertheless, I think Paul VI assumed that the position he enunciated was the only acceptable position, because of the logic he used internally. In other words, it’s hard to squirm out of his conclusions.

That is not to say that those conclusions are easy to understand, either.

Specifically, why is it acceptable for a married couple to abstain from relations for the purpose of preventing conception? I think that conclusion is harder to understand than anything else in the document.

Then, the thing that gets most of us: Why are artificial means of contraception immoral while the ‘natural’ methods are morally acceptable?
 
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BayCityRickL:
Specifically, why is it acceptable for a married couple to abstain from relations for the purpose of preventing conception?
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Responsible parenthood.

The mission of spouses is to participate in God’s creation of a soul from nothing, but not without considering the circumstances in which they find themselves. Trust in God doesn’t eliminate the virtue of prudence. There are just reasons for spacing births, even indefinitely.

At the same time, the ends do not justify the means. Abstaining is a proper means because not having sex, in and of itself, is not immoral. If it were, spouses would be obligated to have sex whenever they can.
Why are artificial means of contraception immoral while the ‘natural’ methods are morally acceptable?
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Just to clarify, while contraception is artificial, its artificiality is not the reason why it’s immoral. What makes contraception immoral is that it violates the dignity of the human person. It does so by making the very act of mutual self-donation in the sexual order something it’s not: a lie.

Abstension, on the other hand, doesn’t contravene the self-giving language of sex. The reason is simple: when you’re not having sex there’s no self-giving language of sex to violate.
 
Dear BayCityRickL,

The two questions you ask are among the most fundamental questions I was left with after a thread of over 300 posts on the subject that was suddently closed without comment.

I am convinced that there are those of us who see these as valid questions, after having carefully and prayerfully considered a great deal of the literature available, and there are those who can’t see them as even valid questions and tend to keep saying the same things to try to answer them. There is a chasm between us, as the chasm between the spiritual mind and the carnal mind, but I can’t figure out which is which.
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BayCityRickL:
Specifically, why is it acceptable for a married couple to abstain from relations for the purpose of preventing conception? I think that conclusion is harder to understand than anything else in the document.
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I have concluded that this teaching is very relative, so it cannot really be defended in an absolute sense. The conditions that allow an individual couple are left up to their own conscience, within certain guidelines. If this isn’t a relative teaching, then I need to learn what “relative” means:
Humanae Vitae:
With regard to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised by those who prudently and generously decide to have more children, and by those who, for serious reasons and with due respect to moral precepts, decide not to have additional children for either a certain or an indefinite period of time.

To your second point:
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BayCityRickL:
Then, the thing that gets most of us: Why are artificial means of contraception immoral while the ‘natural’ methods are morally acceptable?
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I don’t know that it gets “most of us,” but it gets me and apparently you. Of course I can tell the difference between taking contraceptive action to reduce fertility at any given time to perform the marital act, and waiting until the act if naturally infertile. What I still cannot accept is how they are morally different in the case that one is using the calendar, scientific research, and other technology to “naturally” prevent conception. All the arguments I’ve seen so far seem to indicate that it’s OK to use strategic timing (NFP) to avoid conception over the course of a month, but it is not OK to use technology to interfere with any one given sex act. In fact, HV poses this question better than I can, but I still haven’t seen where HV sufficiently answers it:
Humanae Vitae:
Could it not be admitted, in other words, that procreative finality applies to the totality of married life rather than to each single act?

Alan
 
Hello,

If the Holy Catholic Church would ever change it’s teaching on Contraception then you would know IT’S OVER!

Jesus said we would be lead in ALL truth. Thank You Jesus for our beautiflul Catholic Church!

John
 
The Church excludes any means of contraception which separates the unitive from the procreative aspects of conjugal relations, or the procreative from the unitive. Thus, both artificial birth control as well as in vitro fertilization are prohibited.

All Protestant denominations held artifical birth control to be gravely immoral at least until 1930, with the Anglicans in that year declaring that it might be allowed for hard cases.

Catholics, (and many Protestants), though, held firm to the ancient teaching. In 1958 the vast majority of Catholics agreed with the teaching. Between 1958 and 1968, the teaching was undermined, especially by dissident theologians and a sex-absorbed culture, (call it the Playboy Philosophy) such that, in the space of 10 years, many (most?) Catholics had caved in to the prevailing culture, which itself represented a fairly recent change.
 
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john654:
If the Holy Catholic Church would ever change it’s teaching on Contraception then you would know IT’S OVER!
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Dear john654,

Are you then saying that since the teaching cannot change it is infallible?

I’m pretty confused about the consensus here. The original question was whether it was infallible. Apparently it isn’t ex cathedra, but somehow there are varying grades of “infallible” that mean “as far as I’m concerned infallible” even though not official ex cathedra. That brings up the question of whether something not declared as ex cathedra can change.

My own opinion is that since HV is already a relative document as to the morality of specific decisions about whether NFP is licit in any given situation, it isn’t too hard to believe her teaching may change on at least parts of HV. If so, anyone whose faith is lost by that change is like those whose faith is lost because of Vatican II changes. When one becomes to attached to relative teachings and practices, such as saying the Mass in Latin, then they can become the foundation rather than the wallpaper. A change in wallpaper doesn’t undermine the foundation.

Alan
 
Remember that the dogma of papal infallibility was not itself formally defined until Vatican I in 1870. Does that mean that previous to 1870 the Church did not teach infallibly? Of course not. The Pope in Humanae Vitae simply reiterated the ancient teaching of the Catholic Church which had been taught from the beginning, (and indeed the teaching of all the Protestant churches from their beginning.)
 
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