Humanae Vitae and Canada: Forty Years After (republication)

July 11, 2008 - Memorial of St. Benedict, Abbot

With the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI's signing of Humanae Vitae exactly two weeks from today, I am re-posting the first part of "Humanae Vitae and Canada: Forty Years After," a recent article by Msgr. Vincent Foy, the foremost voice in Canada defending Humanae Vitae and exposing the rebellion against it. I posted the article in a single post on June 6, but given the said imminence of the 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae as well as the article's insightful analysis of Humanae Vitae and the Canadian situation, I thought it fitting to post the article again.

In "Humanae Vitae and Canada: Forty Years After," Msgr. Foy reflects on "how the rejection of Humanae Vitae came about,...the malign results of that rejection and the way back to the Truth." He says: "Pope John Paul II called dissent from Humanae Vitae the 'Great Lie.' This lie remains in Canada like a festering, cancerous wound. Can it be cured?"

"Humanae Vitae and Canada: Forty Years After" is a call to arms for Canadian Catholics to wake up and fight the deadly contraceptive ideology which has swamped the Church and society in Canada.

Thank you to Msgr. Foy for sending this article. We hope and pray that it will help Canada "discover the way back to the Truth about Love and Life."

Humanae Vitae and Canada
Forty Years After

byMsgr. Vincent Foy

Introduction

Forty years have passed since Pope Paul VI gave us the gift of the encyclical Humanae Vitae. Signed on the Feast of St. James, July 25th, 1968, it was published on July 29th, 1968. It was addressed to Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops and all other local Ordinaries in Peace and Communion with the Holy See and all the Clergy and Faithful of the Catholic world, and to all Men of Good Will.

Three times in the encyclical the Holy Father invoked the Petrine or divine authority (n. 4, 6, and 31). He said that he intended to give his reply to the grave questions concerning the regulation of births “by virtue of the mandate entrusted to Us by Christ” (n. 6).

Tragically, the authority of Christ was not enough. For forty years rebellion has been widespread in Canada. For forty years we have experienced the deadly fruit of turning away from Christ in the most critical area of Life and marital Love.

This fortieth anniversary is a suitable time to reflect on how the rejection of Humanae Vitae came about, to consider the malign results of that rejection and the way back to the Truth. Pope John Paul II called dissent from Humanae Vitae the “Great Lie.” This lie remains in Canada like a festering, cancerous wound. Can it be cured?

The Slippery Slope

It will help to discover the way back to the Truth about Love and Life if we first look backwards.

All through the centuries the Church remained firm and constant in teaching that contraception was a grave attack on human life. In his encyclical on marriage of Dec. 31, 1930, Pope Pius XI referred to this teaching “which has been handed down from the beginning until now.” He called contraception: “this abominable crime” and “this infamous stain.”

During the depression of the 1930s the majority of Catholics remained faithful to the Church’s teaching. That teaching was confirmed universally by bishops, priests, theologians and teachers.

All that changed in the 1960s after the advent of the birth control Pill. Still there was no change in the Church’s teaching. Pope Pius XII condemned the contraceptive use of the Pill on Sept. 12, 1958. In Vatican Council II married people were taught that in their behaviour “They may not simply follow their own fancy but must be ruled by conscience and conscience ought to be conformed to the law of God in the light of the teaching authority of the Church” (Gaudium et Spes n.50). Pope Paul VI confirmed the teaching of the Church in 1964 and 1966, calling it a time of study and not of doubt.

The tragedy began when many bishops were seduced into listening to errant theologians rather than the voice of Christ spoken to them through His Vicar. They evidently forgot that theology is not the Faith. Theology can seduce, betray and deceive, as it did through the mouths of many. Now we consider how the betrayal of Truth came about in Canada. We examine the highlights, or rather the lowlights, of that betrayal.

Cardinal Leger
The Church in Canada was already heading down the slippery slope to dissent at Vatican II. Influenced by Cardinal Suenens, on Oct. 30, 1964 Cardinal Leger said: “Confessors are assailed by doubts. They no longer know what to answer.” He also said “Fecundity is an obligation. But we should concentrate less on the fecundity of each sexual act and more on the totality of married life… We must affirm that the intimate union of the couple finds its legitimacy in itself when it is not directed toward procreation.”

The Book “Contraception and Holiness”
That same year, 1964, a book was published by Herder and Herder, which further underlined that all was not right in Canada. It as called “Contraception and Holiness” and called for a change in the Church’s teaching on contraception. Among the contributors were three professors at St. Michael’s College: Gregory Baum, OSA, Stanley Kutz, CSB, and Leslie Dewart.

The Toronto Conference on the Theology of Renewal
A congress on the Theology of the Renewal of the Church was held in Toronto in 1967. It was heavily loaded with speakers who were agitating for change in the Church’s teaching against contraception. Among these were Cardinal Leger, Cardinal Suenens, Edward Schillebeeckx, OP, Karl Rahner, SJ, Bernard H¬ring, CSsR, Bernard Lonergan, SJ, and Enda McDonagh (called by some the Maynooth Pope of Modernism). The only speaker who defended the Church’s teaching was Elizabeth Anscombe. Fr. H¬ring saw the teaching against contraception as coming from a pre-scientific mind appropriate to a former society. Thus again, Canada was being led down the slippery slope towards the contraceptive mentality.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB)
On Sept. 9, 1966, the CCCB addressed a document “To the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health and Welfare: on Change in the Law of Contraception.” The bishops said in part: “We consider Article 150, which forbids giving information about contraception, as well as the sale or distribution of contraception an inadequate law to day… a large number of our fellow citizens believe that this law violates their rights to be informed and helped towards responsible parenthood in accordance with their personal beliefs.”

They went so far as to say “We do not conceive it our duty to oppose appropriate change in Article 150 of the Criminal Code. Indeed, we could easily envisage an active co-operation and even leadership on the part of lay Catholics to change a law which under present conditions they might well judge to be harmful to public order and the common good.”

This incredible betrayal of Catholic teaching on the intrinsic evil of contraception was a factor in the passing of a bill by the Liberal government under Pierre Trudeau, legalizing contraception (June 27, 1969).

The Canadian Federation for Sexual Health commented: “Surprisingly, the Canadian Catholic Conference of the Roman Catholic Church did not oppose the law, stating that Canada was a pluralistic society, but that Roman Catholics should not practise contraception.” The CCCB did not affirm that no one should practise contraception. In other words, they failed to affirm that the law against contraception was a divine natural law binding all.

Archbishop Plourde of Ottawa
In August of 1968 Archbishop Plourde of Ottawa issued a pastoral letter on Humanae Vitae. He said that individuals have the right “to reach a judgement different from that of the Holy Father.”

Gregory Baum
In the summer of 1968, Gregory Baum kept up his campaign against Humanae Vitae through lectures, writings and interviews. He said Catholics could use contraception in good conscience. He attacked the Pope for going against “the Christian experience of vast numbers of Catholics and the witness of other Christian Churches.”

Pressure Groups
After Humanae Vitae, pressure groups sprung up like mushrooms. Among these were the Western Conference of priests, armed with a letter of support for dissent by Fr. Bernard Lonergan, SJ, the Catholic Physicians Guild of Manitoba, Catholics in Dialogue, the Canadian Institute of Theology and 58 “intellectuals” of St. Francis Xavier University (“the cream of Antigonish” their Bishop said.) The chant of all was “Give us Freedom of Conscience.”

Most significant and most disgraceful was that fifteen Directors of the departments of the Canadian Catholic Conference of Bishops betrayed their offices and signed what one could call a “Pre-Winnipeg” Statement. They asked for a “Vatican II approach.” They said that a large number of Canadian priests were agonizing “in acute crises of conscience” because of the “apparent directives of Humanae Vitae.” In all my experience I never met a priest suffering from such an acute crisis of conscience.

So the stage was set for the great Winnipeg betrayal of the Catholics of Canada.

The Winnipeg Disaster

The slippery slope led down to the Winnipeg Disaster of Friday Sept. 27th, 1968. On that date the Canadian bishops published a Statement on Humanae Vitae. After denying the sufficiency of grace for some (n.17) the bishops embraced the error of allowing married couples to break God’s law by the subterfuge of the subjective conscience. They said there were circumstances in which the couples “may be safely assured that whoever honestly chooses that course which seems right to him does so in good conscience” (n.26).

In 1969, Father John Flanagan, founder of the International Catholic Priests’ Association, wrote a perceptive analysis of this device. He said “Among the many attempts to create a loophole through which the dissident cleric or lay person endeavours to escape from the moral obligation of accepting the Papal decision on birth control, recourse to (pseudo) conscience, is the most widespread and deceptive. It is an escape hatch through which Bishops, priests, and lay folk still try to come to the top through their sunken hopes that the law against contraception would be changed.”

So it was and is in Canada.

(To be continued.)

Humanae Vitae and Canada: Forty Years After (next)