This is the last of three articles that I would like to offer you on the topic of marriage. In the last two issues of the Chronicle I summarized some of what the social sciences have to say about the serious problems facing marriage today, as well as the great benefits of marriage for the flourishing of the human person and society at large. My article last month was accompanied by a reprint of the chapter on marriage from the U.S. Adult Catechism.

I would be neglecting my duty as a bishop, however, if I did not also address a very significant issue that remains a deep wound at the very heart of marriage and in the consciences of many people. I am referring to the issue of contraception.

Let’s begin with a little history. Until 1930 every Christian denomination was unanimous in its condemnation of contraception. When the Anglicans abandoned this teaching in 1930, and it looked like other denominations might do the same, the Washington Post editorialized that this “would sound the death knell of marriage as a holy institution by establishing degrading practices which would encourage indiscriminate immorality. The suggestion that the use of legalized contraceptives would be ‘careful and restrained’ is preposterous.”

Almost 40 years later, in 1968, when Pope Paul VI reaffirmed the received Christian teaching about contraception, he pointed out some of the consequences of separating intercourse from the procreation of children; namely, a gradual weakening of moral discipline; a trivialization of human sexuality; the demeaning of women; marital infidelity often leading to broken families; and state-sponsored programs of population control based on imposed contraception and sterilization. (cf. Humanae Vitae, 17)

In the years since, we have witnessed the introduction of legalized abortion and euthanasia, an ever-increasing recourse to in vitro fertilization and certain forms of genetic manipulation and embryo experimentation. These developments are closely related, in law and public policy as well as in contemporary culture, to the idea behind contraception, that is, unlimited dominion over one’s body and life without regard for their God-given meaning and purpose.

We are all familiar with the question politicians ask at election time: “Are you better off than you were two or four years ago?” In the 1960s those who were advocating the widespread acceptance of oral contraceptives argued that marriages and families would be so much healthier if couples were relieved of the stress caused by having too many children or being subjected to the stress of sexual abstinence as the only alternative.

Forty years later this rosy promise has been forgotten amid the relentless weakening of marriage and family life. We live in a world of divorce and broken families, cohabitation, “recreational” sex, fornication, promiscuity, pornography and the widespread acceptance of immoral sexual acts. The toll on people’s psychological, physical, social and even economic health is heavy. It should also be noted that many contraceptive societies will face demographic extinction unless they start having enough children to renew their population.

Let’s be clear. The church recognizes that couples can have valid reasons not to have children at certain times in their married life. In the words of Humanae Vitae, “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.” (no. 10)

What is a “moral” method of avoiding pregnancy? People often scoff that the church condemns so-called “artificial” means but accepts “natural” family planning. After all, the desired effect is the same: no baby. But in the words of Christopher West: “What’s the big difference between an abortion and a miscarriage? What’s the big difference between suicide and natural death? Like these examples, the difference between sterilizing an act of intercourse yourself and accepting the God-given infertile time is one of cosmic dimensions.” From a moral point of view there is a vast difference between the intentional and willful suppression of fertility, on the one hand, and the acceptance of a God-given infertile time, on the other.

So much more needs to be explored when it comes to this issue, because what is at stake is not just the bodies and souls of individuals, but the future of our very society. In November of 2006 the U.S. Bishops published a document titled Married Love and the Gift of Life. It is a re-presentation of the church’s teaching, and it is being reprinted in today’s Chronicle. The document is written in simple language and is specifically aimed at couples preparing for marriage, but the message is important for all of us, and I invite you to please give it a careful reading.

A few months ago one of the great champions of Catholic teaching on sex and marriage, Mr. West, whom I quoted earlier, was invited to speak in our diocese at Bowling Green University. His topic was Pope John Paul’s “theology of the body” and its implications for the truth about sex and marriage. Several hundred students, many of them non-Catholic, showed up for his talk, and there was a very positive response by many of them. Thoughtful young people are recognizing that the slick misinformation our culture is giving them is a dead end street when it comes to the authentic meaning of sexuality. Hearing Mr. West, an oft-repeated reaction among young people is “why has no one ever told me this before?”

+ MOST REVEREND LEONARD P. BLAIR
       BISHOP OF TOLEDO