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Casti Connubii was a papal encyclical promulgated by Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI

Pope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, reigned as Pope from February 6, 1922, and as sovereignty of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on February 11, 1929 until his death on February 10, 1939....
 on December 31, 1930. It stressed the sanctity of marriage
Marriage

Marriage is a social, spirituality, or law union of individuals. This union may also be called matrimony, while the ceremony that marks its beginning is usually called a wedding and the married status created is sometimes called wedlock....
, prohibited Roman Catholics
Roman Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church, officially known as the Catholic Church is the world's largest Christianity Ecclesia , representing over half of all Christians and one-sixth of the world population....
 from using any form of artificial birth control
Birth control

Birth control, sometimes synonymous with contraception, is a regimen of one or more actions, devices, or medications followed in order to deliberately prevent or reduce the likelihood of pregnancy or childbirth....
, and reaffirmed the prohibition on abortion
Abortion

An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by the removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in or caused by its death....
. It also explained the authority of church doctrine on moral matters, and advocated that civil governments follow the lead of the church in this area.

y Catholic doctrine considered complete sexual abstinence
Sexual abstinence

Sexual abstinence is the practice of voluntarily refraining from some or all aspects of sexual activity.Common reasons for practicing sexual abstinence include:...
 to be the most holy state for humans, with marriage allowed only for those without the fortitude required by an abstinent life.






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Casti Connubii was a papal encyclical promulgated by Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI

Pope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, reigned as Pope from February 6, 1922, and as sovereignty of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on February 11, 1929 until his death on February 10, 1939....
 on December 31, 1930. It stressed the sanctity of marriage
Marriage

Marriage is a social, spirituality, or law union of individuals. This union may also be called matrimony, while the ceremony that marks its beginning is usually called a wedding and the married status created is sometimes called wedlock....
, prohibited Roman Catholics
Roman Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church, officially known as the Catholic Church is the world's largest Christianity Ecclesia , representing over half of all Christians and one-sixth of the world population....
 from using any form of artificial birth control
Birth control

Birth control, sometimes synonymous with contraception, is a regimen of one or more actions, devices, or medications followed in order to deliberately prevent or reduce the likelihood of pregnancy or childbirth....
, and reaffirmed the prohibition on abortion
Abortion

An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by the removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in or caused by its death....
. It also explained the authority of church doctrine on moral matters, and advocated that civil governments follow the lead of the church in this area.

Topics


Sanctity of marriage, opposition to eugenics

Early Catholic doctrine considered complete sexual abstinence
Sexual abstinence

Sexual abstinence is the practice of voluntarily refraining from some or all aspects of sexual activity.Common reasons for practicing sexual abstinence include:...
 to be the most holy state for humans, with marriage allowed only for those without the fortitude required by an abstinent life. This encyclical, however, stresses that marriage is a sacrament, equal in stature to remaining virginal and unmarried.

Casti Connubii speaks out against the eugenics
Eugenics

Eugenics is a scientific field involving the controlled breeding of humans in order to achieve desirable traits in future generations. Eugenics was at its height in first half of the 20th century and was largely abandoned with the end of World War II....
 laws, popular at that time, that forbade those deemed 'unfit' from marrying and having children:
Those who act in this way are at fault in losing sight of the fact that the family is more sacred than the State and that men are begotten not for the earth and for time, but for Heaven and eternity.


The encyclical also affirms the Church's opposition to adultery and divorce, and support of wives as homemakers (in opposition to the feminist movement's suggestion that women have careers).

Birth control

Prior to this encyclical, it was believed by some Catholics that the only licit reason for sexual intercourse
Sexual intercourse

Sexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which the Penis enters the Vagina. The two entities may be of opposite sexes or not, or they may be hermaphrodite, as is the case with snails....
 was an attempt to create children. At the time, there was no official church position on any non-procreative purposes of intercourse. Casti Connubii does repeat several times that the conjugal act is intrinsically tied with procreation:
. . . any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin.


However, Casti Connubii also acknowledges the unitive aspect of intercourse as licit:
Nor are those considered as acting against nature who in the married state use their right in the proper manner although on account of natural reasons either of time or of certain defects, new life cannot be brought forth. For in matrimony as well as in the use of the matrimonial rights there are also secondary ends, such as mutual aid, the cultivating of mutual love, and the quieting of concupiscence which husband and wife are not forbidden to consider so long as they are subordinated to the primary end and so long as the intrinsic nature of the act is preserved.


The 'natural reasons of time or of certain defects' are universally accepted as meaning menopause
Menopause

The Menopause is the permanent cessation of menstruation which occurs a considerable length of time before the end of the lifespan.The word was first applied to humans, and because of this it literally means the cessation of monthly cycles or menstrual cycles, from the Greek roots meno and pausis ....
 and infertility
Infertility

Infertility primarily refers to the biological inability of a person to contribute to fertilization. Infertility may also refer to the state of a woman who is unable to carry a pregnancy to full term....
. This paragraph thus means menopausal and infertile couples may morally engage in intercourse, even though there is no possibility of children resulting from the act.

The 'natural reasons of time' is interpreted by some to also mean the infertile portion of a woman's menstrual cycle
Menstrual cycle

The menstrual cycle is a recurring cycle of physiology changes that occurs in reproductive-age females. Overt menstruation occurs primarily in humans and close evolutionary relatives such as chimpanzees....
. The practice of avoiding pregnancy by abstaining from sexual relations when the woman is fertile (natural family planning
Natural family planning

Natural family planning is a term referring to the family planning methods approved by the Roman Catholic Church. In accordance with the requirements for human sexual behavior in keeping with the dignity of the human person, as maintained by this church, NFP excludes the use of birth control, as well as acts intended to end in orgasm outsid...
) was first addressed in rulings by the Sacred Penitentiary
Apostolic Penitentiary

The Apostolic Penitentiary, more formally the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Penitentiary, is one of the three tribunals of the Roman Curia....
 in 1853 and 1880, which declared the practice moral. However, a few Catholic theologians continued to hold that such practices were equivalent to contraception and thus immoral, and some historians consider two 1951 speeches by Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII

Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as the 260th pope, head of the Roman Catholic Church and monarch of Vatican City, from March 2, 1939 until his death in 1958....
 to be the first explicit Church acceptance of natural family planning. The modern Church's view of contraception was explored further in the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae
Humanae Vitae

Humanae Vitae is an encyclical written by Pope Paul VI and promulgated on July 25, 1968. Subtitled "On the Regulation of Birth", it re-affirms the traditional teaching of the Roman Catholic Church regarding abortion, contraception, and other issues pertaining to human life....
 by Pope Paul VI
Pope Paul VI

Pope Paul VI , born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini , reigned as Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and monarch of Vatican City from 1963 to 1978....
, and by Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II John Paul II is widely acclaimed as one of the most influential leaders of the twentieth century. He has been Pope_John_Paul_II#Role_in_the_fall_of_Communism in bringing down communism in Eastern Europe, as well as significantly improving the Roman Catholic Church's relations with Judaism, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and A...
's lecture series later entitled Theology of the Body
Theology of the Body

Theology of the Body is the topic of a series of 129 lectures given by Pope John Paul II during his Wednesday Audience in the Pope Paul VI Hall between September 1979 and November 1984....
.

Abortion

This encyclical repeats the Church's condemnation of abortion in all circumstances. It also draws a connection between contracepting couples and couples that have abortions:
. . .those wicked parents who seek to remain childless, and failing in this, are not ashamed to put their offspring to death.


Impact

Casti Connubii is most noted for its anti-contraception position. Unlike major Protestant denominations, the Roman Catholic Church has continued its opposition to artificial birth control. This encyclical, along with Humanae Vitae, has come to represent that stance.

Further reading