Part
II
MAN
‘O
youth, youth, you have no cares, all the riches of the world are thine, even
misfortune comforts thee, even sorrow rests easy on thy brow. Thou art arrogant
and proud, and thou sayest: Look at me! Look! I alone exist! - even as thy days
race by and vanish without trace and without number, and everything in thee
dissolves and melts away like wax in the sun, like the snow…’
Turgenev, First Love [1]
Having seen how the Council has attempted to amalgamate the Church and
the World, we shall now see more closely how it informs this construct not with
the spirit of the Church, the Spirit of Truth and Sanctification which is in effect
the Holy Spirit, Her Soul; but with the spirit of the World, which is the
spirit of fallen man. This latter spirit, as we said in the Preface, we
consider the key to understanding the Council. We shall consequently proceed to
present Council teaching on man: in the first chapter, man in the two forms of
life in which he may realize himself on this earth: the married and the
consecrated life, whether that of the priest or that of the religious; in the
second chapter, man in his relation to God; in the third chapter, man in
himself.
In this second part of the book we shall witness the work of destruction
of Catholic doctrine, which we have seen above in regard to the Faith and the
Church, continue in regard to the sacraments of marriage and the Holy Eucharist,
and in regard to the priesthood and religious life.
Chapter
VI
MAN’S CHOICE OF LIFE
(The
First Part)
In this chapter we examine the Council’s teaching of man’s choice of
life, namely in:
B. The Priesthood;
C. The Religious Life.
A. Marriage
Pope John Paul II played an important rôle in the writing of the
document Gaudium et Spes and any-one
acquainted with his personalistic doctrines, as manifest particularly in
‘Theology of the Body’ will find ample evidence of them in the document’s
chapter on marriage and the family.
In this section we shall consider Council teaching on:
- 1.The Nature of Marriage;
- 2. The End(s) of Marriage;
- 3.The Dignity of Married
Love;
- 4. Contraception;
- 5.The Equality of the
Spouses;
- 6.Marriage as a Vocation;
- 7.‘Sex Education.’
- 1.The
Nature of Marriage
‘The intimate partnership of
life and the love which constitutes the married state…’ (GS 48)
The Council of Trent and its Catechism speak of marriage rather as a
‘bond’. The former states [1]:
‘The first father of the human race, inspired by the Divine Spirit, proclaimed
the perpetual and indissoluble bond of matrimony…’, and the latter explicitly
defines marriage in theological terms as a ‘bond’, vinculum.
The text may be criticized on the following counts:
a)
it is not a definition of marriage at all; indeed in Gaudium et Spes marriage is nowhere
defined. Rather, it amounts only to a description
of marriage, and that in the psychologizing terms characteristic of
Personalism;
b)
it does not understand marriage as essentially
something spiritual (the bond), but rather as something purely physical (a
partnership);
c)
it makes no reference to any substance or concrete
thing (the bond) but rather to an amorphous, fluid concept (that of a
partnership of life and love). The
detachment from Being is a characterisitic of Personalism, while the concept of
some sort of life-flux recalls the Modernist doctrine of ‘vital immanence’;
d) the description is anyway incorrect, for the Church permits married couples in certain circumstances to live without a ‘partnership of life’, that is to say separately; and a ‘partnership of love’ is not necessary for marriage either, if love is understood in a carnal sense as the Council seems to understand it (see below). For a couple is permitted to marry in order to pursue a common objective, while living together in perfect chastity. The most remarkable example of this is of course given to us by the Holy Family.
- 2. The
End(s) of Marriage
Historical Context
The speech on this subject which had the greatest effect on the Fathers
was that of Cardinal Suenens: ‘Perhaps
we have stressed the words of the Scripture: ‘Increase and multiply’ to the
point of leaving in the shade the other divine words: ‘The two will be one
flesh.’ It will be for the Commission to tell us if we have not emphasized the
first end, which is procreation, to the detriment of a finality equally
imperative, which is the growth in conjugal unity’ (RdM, V 10). The Cardinal
re-inforced his argument by referring to the population explosion. Warm
applause followed his words, orchestrated by Mgr. Helder Camara.
Cardinal Ruffini wrote to the Secretary of State, Cardinal Cicognani to
complain of Cardinal Suenens’ ‘horrendous’ words, asking him to be removed from
the function of Moderator, and asking if adaptation to to-day’s society could
justify calling ‘moral’ that which had always been considered immoral. Pope
Paul VI rebuked Cardinal Suenens in a private audience, and on the day
following the latter’s speech, Cardinal Ottaviani spoke on a personal note of
his father’s trust in Divine Providence in raising a family of 12 children
despite their great poverty. His speech was followed by an allocution by
Cardinal Browne, who expounded Catholic marital doctrine with exemplary
clarity, explaining with great precision the meaning of married love, and the
conditions for its proper exercise.
Unfortunately, however, it was not the traditional, clear, ascetic, and
noble doctrine elevated by Faith, which came to be enshrined in the Council
document, but, despite some reference made to Tradition, a doctrine new,
unclear, and informed with the spirit of the World.
Analysis of Texts
i) ‘By its very nature the
institution of marriage and married love are ordered to the procreation and
education of the offspring, and in them it finds its crowning glory (iisque veluti suo fastigio coronantur)’
(GS 48);
ii) ‘Marriage and married love
are by nature ordered to the procreation and education of children.’ (GS
50).
Texts (i) and (ii) express a novel vision of the ends of marriage.
The Code of Canon Law of 1917, representing Traditional Catholic
teaching, had stated [2]:
‘The primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of the offspring;
the secondary is the reciprocal assistance and remedy of concupiscence.’
Subsequently it was asked [3]:
‘Can the teaching of certain modern authors be allowed who deny that the
procreation and education of the child is the principal end of the marriage or
that the secondary ends are not necessarily subordinate to the principal end
but of equal value and independent of it? No, this teaching cannot be allowed.’
Finally Pope Pius X had declared [4]:
‘Marriage as a natural institution according to the will of God… is ordered to
the procreation and education of new life. The other ends… are fundamentally
subordinate to it.’
We proceed to compare the two doctrines. The Traditional doctrine states
(in the briefest possible outline): ‘Marriage is ordered to procreation and
married love’; the new doctrine states, by contrast: ‘Marriage and married love
is ordered to procreation.’ In the first case we have, then, A → (B & C); in the second case we have (A
& C) → B.
Taking the Traditional doctrine as the true Catholic teaching, we may
conclude that the new doctrine is incorrect in associating marriage and married
love too closely. The closeness of this association (which we have already seen
in the description of marriage in the section above) suggests either that
marriage is identical to married love, or that it encompasses it. This gives
married love precedence over procreation, since the identity relation (or that
of encompassment), which marriage would be purported to have to married love,
is clearly closer than that of the causal relation that it has to procreation.
As to the causal relation between marriage and procreation, we may say
that it is correctly expressed in text (ii) but incorrectly in text (i). For
marriage is indeed ordered to procreation (as stated in text ii), but not as
‘its crowning glory’ (as stated in text ii). The reason for this is that if
procreation is the ‘crowning glory’ of marriage, then it is merely a
consequence of, or adjunct to, something else, that is to say of married love:
wherefore in this case too married love is given precedence over procreation.
This precedence is further manifest in the insistent attention given to married
(carnal) love in the whole chapter on marriage and the family, which greatly
outweighs that given to procreation.
The new doctrine may further be criticized for abandoning traditional,
technical terminology such as that of the ‘end’ (finis), with its inherent reference to God’s designs and to the
Natural Law; and that of ‘mutual assistance’, and ‘remedy of concupiscence’ in
respect of married love. Instead of speaking in such terms, it does not define
married love at all, but rather, by treating of it in its ordination to
procreation, it presents it as carnal love. In these ways we see a shift away
from objective reality precisely defined, to that psychologizing subjectivism
characteristic of Personalism.
Subsequent to the Council, as is well known, the Code of Canon Law of
1983 (c. 1055) will give precedence to married love over procreation - by
mentioning the former end before the latter - ‘The marriage contract… is
ordered to the good of the spouses and to the procreation and education of the
offspring’. The encyclical Amoris
Laetitia (s. 80) will take a further step in explicitly presenting love as
the primary end of marriage: ‘Marriage is firstly an ‘intimate partnership of
life and love’ which is a good for the spouses themselves.’
- 3.The
Dignity of Married Love
i) [Christ] ‘… abides with them
in order that by their mutual self-giving spouses will love each other with
enduring fidelity, as he loved the church and delivered himself for it.
Authentic married love is caught up into divine love… with the result that the
spouses… are helped and strengthened in their lofty role as fathers and
mothers. Spouses are therefore fortified and as it were consecrated for the
duties and dignity of their state by a special sacrament…’ (GS 48).
ii) ‘Married love is an eminently
human love…it can enrich the sentiments of the spirit and their physical
expression with a unique dignity…’ (GS 49).
iii) ‘Married love is uniquely
expressed and perfected by the exercise of the acts proper to marriage. Hence
the acts in marriage by which the intimate and chaste union of the spouses
takes place are noble and honorable. The truly human performance of these acts
fosters the self-giving they signify…’ (GS 49).
The Council in text (i) expresses the centrality of Christ and of
sacramental grace to married love but gives more importance in the whole
chapter to married love in its purely natural dimension.
This then is the first novelty that we find in the text; the second
novelty is the sense that the Council lends to married love.
How does the Council understand married love? According to Tradition,
married love, as we have seen above, is understood as ‘mutual assistance’ which
is understood as the love of friendship; and, if the marriage encompasses
conjugal union, also as ‘the remedy of concupiscence.’ According to the Council, by contrast,
married love is principally the love of carnal, conjugal union, a love related
to day-to-day spousal love as its guarantor and as the source of its fidelity.
This love of conjugal union is expressed by the Council equally as
‘mutual self-giving’ in text (i), as well (apparently) as in terms of the ‘human’
dimension of married love, in texts (ii) and (iii). There are in fact no less
than seven occurrences of the phrase ‘mutual self-giving’ in the chapter
(including the related concept of mutual self-surrender in GS 48, and ‘mutual
and unreserved affection’ in GS 49) [5],
and four usages of the term ‘human’ in the context of carnal love. To such a
love is attributed ‘unique dignity’ in text (ii), and nobility and honor in
text (iii), representing yet another novelty for Catholic marital ethics.
Nothing is said of the lack of control inherent to such acts as a legacy of
Original Sin, nor of the danger of seeking selfish pleasure in the exercise of
such acts to the detriment of the love of friendship and to the holiness of
Catholic marriage, to both of which the spouses are bound.
In short, the dignity of married love is viewed less in its relation to
Our Lord, than in its sexuality [6].
The tenor of the whole chapter comes close to positions condemned by the Decretum de finibus matrimonii, such as
the doctrine that ‘The mutual love of the spouses and their union, further
developed and perfected by the physical and spiritual gift of their own person’
be the principal goal of marriage. We again see the subjectivist, personalist
predilection for experience, psychology, and sense-love over objective truth.
We will proceed to encounter a further example of this in the ambiguous
phraseology with which the Council treats the matter of contraception.
- 4. Contraception
Historical Context
Professor de Mattei points out that the real drama for the West,
particularly for Europe, in the decades succeeding the Council, was to be a
decrease in population. And yet many of the Council Fathers had taken to heart
the Malthusian warnings of a coming catastrophe for humanity, if a rigid policy
of birth control were not implemented: science seemed to have offered the means
to this end in the discovery of the so-called ‘pill’, and the Fathers
maintained that the Church must here too recognize the ‘signs of the times’ and
act accordingly (RdM V 9).
Pope John XXIII had created a Commission to study the question of
contraception, and Pope Paul VI asked the Council to address the question, but
only in general terms. The novel conception of morality was presented by Maximos
IV Saigh, who affirmed that the Middle Ages, mankind’s period of infancy,
had now come to an end [7],
and that the world was currently entering into the age of its maturity. How
many adult Catholics believe any more that missing Sunday Mass without a motive
is a mortal sin? Disciplines must change. ‘Christian morality should have a
Christocentric character with an expression of love and freedom. It should
educate all to a sense of personal and communitarian responsibility.’ The
progressives gave prolonged applause, and Bishop Mendez Arceo expressed his
agreement. He described as ‘signs of our times’ a growth in the sense of
responsibility and freedom. ‘We must preach the spirit of freedom and love… let
us concentrate on the essential, which is Paschal Joy.’
Three days later, Bishop Juan Hervas, in the name of 126 Fathers,
denounced the schema’s naturalist and materialistic spirit: it spoke ‘too
little and too timidly of supernatural Faith and trust in Divine Providence, of
the love and acceptance of the Cross, which should illuminate Christian
prudence’ so often referred to in the document in regard to the size of
Catholic families.
Analysis of Texts
i) ‘Married couples should see it
as their mission to transmit human life…This involves fulfilling their role
responsibly… in a spirit of obedient respect for God… ; it also involves taking
into consideration their own well-being, and the well-being of their children
already born or yet to come, being able to read the signs of the times, and
assess their own situation on the material and spiritual level… It is the
married couple themselves who must in the last analysis arrive at these
judgments before God. [They]… must
be ruled by conscience… in accord with the law of God in the teaching authority
of the church…with generous human and christian responsibility… But marriage
was not instituted solely for the procreation of children… the mutual love of
the partners [must] be properly
expressed… Special mention should be made of those who… courageously undertake
the rearing of a large family’ (GS 50).
Text (i), in accordance with the exhortation to married couples to ‘read
the signs of the times’ serves as an opening to a new vision of the regulation
of births. The raising of large families is commended, but is no longer
presented as the Catholic norm. The principle for determining the number of
children has instead become ‘responsibility’, a responsibility understood as
indicating primarily the raising of small families, although the term is
qualified later in the text as ‘generous’.
Criteria for the regulation of births are specified as:
-
the well-being
of the spouses and of their children, present or potential;
-
‘material and spiritual’ factors;
-
the demands of ‘mutual love’ (which must be ‘properly
expressed’ – as though the Natural law which alternates fertile and infertile
cycles for procreation did not permit spouses properly to express conjugal
love).
At one moment, text (i) states that the couple itself ‘must in the last
analysis arrive at these judgments’ (a phrase which Cardinal Ruffini described
as ‘obscure and full of the most dangerous ambiguities’), at the next moment it
states that they must decide according to the ruling of the conscience, in
accordance with God’s law and the Church’s authority.
As we observed in chapter 5 of our book ‘Family under Attack’, the term
‘responsibility’ was beginning to be used by the hierarchy in the 1960’s in
such a way as to favor small families and even contraception. ‘Responsible
Parenthood’ was the name given to the Majority Report, produced by the Papal
Commission prior to the encyclical Humanae
Vitae, which in fact favors artificial contraception, and although Humanae Vitae does of course condemn
such a practice, the word ‘responsible parenthood’ occurs in it seven times.
In text (i), then, the Council offers reasons for smaller families; it
insinuates that birth control may be practiced and that couples are the
ultimate arbiters of the matter; while, in apparent contradiction to these
assertions, it invokes the law of God and the authority of the Church as guides
of conduct.
ii) ‘In questions of birth
regulation the daughters and sons of the church, faithful to these principles,
are forbidden to use methods disapproved of by the teaching authority of the
church in its interpretation of the divine law’ (GS 51) [8];
The English peritus Charles
Davis stated that: ‘On the methods of birth control the Council ‘deliberately refrained
from committing itself. Its carefully worded references to the subject do no
more than state the obvious truth that unlawful methods… are excluded.’ Indeed
contraception is nowhere in the document stated to be an intrinsic evil, and
nowhere explicitly condemned.
Paul VI was so disturbed by the document’s ambivalence that he sent four
amendments to the scheme which the commission members were to read after the periti had been sent out of the room.
Two of these amendments were that artificial contraception was to be
specifically condemned and that a footnote should be added referring to the
sections in Pope Pius XI’s document Casti
Connubii and in Pope Pius XII’s Allocution to the Midwives that condemned
contraception, furnishing their respective page numbers. The Commission however
disobeyed, and, instead of this, added a reference to an Allocution of 1964 in
which Paul VI stated that the question was still under consideration. Charles
Davis summed up: ‘The Council leaves the matter alone, waiting for further
clarification. Its decision to do so inevitably confirms that serious doubt
exists on the subject within the Church.’
Paul VI renounced his decision to include a specific condemnation of
artificial contraception within the text of Gaudium
et Spes, but insisted that the page references that he had asked for should
be included in the footnote. This was done, although (as in the case of the
footnote concerning Communism that we have considered above) it was not
expressly stated even in the footnote, that explicit condemnations were being
referred to. We see here how ‘a process of calculated fraud’ prevented a
specific condemnation of contraception as it had done of atheistic communism [9].
[1] The world-view of this writer is distinguished for its beauty and high poetry, marred, alas not infrequently, by the icy breath of impurity. For this reason the writings of his contemporary Chekhov are more highly to be recommended, which, though similar in vision, are chaste and thus greater and more noble. D 1797
[2] c. 1613
[3] Decretum de finibus
matrimonii of 1944 (AAS XXXVI)
[4] in his address
to the Italian Midwives of 1951
[5] we note how the notion of self-gift will be
incorporated into the new rite of marriage: Instead of the old rite: ‘N. do you
take N., here present, to your lawful wife etc.’ we find: ‘N. and N., have you
come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in
marriage?’
[6] The same will be true of the new rite of
marriage, the chief purpose of which is seen as the strengthening of the
romantic love of the couple (Lex Orandi,
op.cit., pp.118-123). The word ‘love’ is used 20 times in the new rite, its
most used word, whereas it is mentioned only 4 times in the old rite, where the
most used word is ‘Lord.’ In the Latin, the words caritas and dilectio and
cognates are used for ‘love’ in both rites, while the new rite adds the word amor, in the phrases: amorem vestrum conjugalem and amoris mei signifying passionate or
sexual love, and in the latter case capable of bearing a suggestion even of
illicit love.
[7] it may surprise some readers to learn that they were
born in the Middle Ages (normally thought to have come to an end with the Renaissance, the Fall of Constantinople,
or the ‘Reformation’).
[8] cf. also the
disapproval in GS 47 of ‘unlawful contraceptive practices’
[9] MD pp. 69-70;
Fr. Wiltgen, The Rhine Flows into the Tiber pp. 267-72
