Pontifical Commission on Birth Control
Encyclopedia
The Pontifical Commission on Birth Control was a committee within the Roman Curia
tasked with analyzing the modern impact of birth control
on the Roman Catholic Church
. The disagreements within the commission ultimately led to the publication of the encylical Humanae Vitae
.
established a commission of six European non-theologians to study questions of birth control and population.
added theologians to the commission and over three years expanded it to 72 members from five continents (including 16 theologians, 13 physicians and five women without medical credentials, with an executive committee of 16 bishops, including seven cardinals.)
) drafted a minority report working paper that was signed by Ford and three other theologian priests on the commission, stating that the Church should not and could not change its long-standing teaching. Even though intended for the Pope only, the commission's report and two working papers (the minority report and the majority's rebuttal to it) were leaked to the press in 1967, raising public expectations of liberalization.
The rationale for issuing the minority report was spelled out:
that were then being developed.
Roman Curia
The Roman Curia is the administrative apparatus of the Holy See and the central governing body of the entire Catholic Church, together with the Pope...
tasked with analyzing the modern impact of birth control
Birth control
Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...
on the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
. The disagreements within the commission ultimately led to the publication of the encylical Humanae Vitae
Humanae Vitae
Humanae Vitae is an encyclical written by Pope Paul VI and issued on 25 July 1968. Subtitled On the Regulation of Birth, it re-affirms the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church regarding married love, responsible parenthood, and the continuing proscription of most forms of birth...
.
Establishment by John XXIII
With the appearance of the first oral contraceptives in 1960, dissenters in the Church argued for a reconsideration of the Church positions. In 1963 Pope John XXIIIPope John XXIII
-Papal election:Following the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958, Roncalli was elected Pope, to his great surprise. He had even arrived in the Vatican with a return train ticket to Venice. Many had considered Giovanni Battista Montini, Archbishop of Milan, a possible candidate, but, although archbishop...
established a commission of six European non-theologians to study questions of birth control and population.
Role of Paul VI
After John's death in 1963, Pope Paul VIPope Paul VI
Paul VI , born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church from 21 June 1963 until his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding Pope John XXIII, who had convened the Second Vatican Council, he decided to continue it...
added theologians to the commission and over three years expanded it to 72 members from five continents (including 16 theologians, 13 physicians and five women without medical credentials, with an executive committee of 16 bishops, including seven cardinals.)
Majority report
The commission produced a report in 1966, proposing that artificial birth control was not intrinsically evil and that Catholic couples should be allowed to decide for themselves about the methods to be employed. According to the majority report, use of contraceptives should be regarded as an extension of the already accepted cycle method:
The acceptance of a lawful application of the calculated sterile periods of the woman--that the application is legitimate presupposes right motives--makes a separation between the sexual act which is explicitly intended and its reproductive effect which is intentionally excluded. The tradition has always rejected seeking this separation with a contraceptive intention for motives spoiled by egoism and hedonism, and such seeking can never be admitted. The true opposition is not to be sought between some material conformity to the physiological processes of nature and some artificial intervention. For it is natural to man to use his skill in order to put under human control what is given by physical nature. The opposition is really to be sought between one way of acting which is contraceptive and opposed to a prudent and generous fruitfulness, and another way which is, in an ordered relationship to responsible fruitfulness and which has a concern for education and all the essential, human and Christian values.
Minority report
One commission member, American Jesuit theologian John Ford (with the assistance of American theologian Germain GrisezGermain Grisez
Germain Gabriel Grisez is a Catholic moral theologian. Grisez is the author of the three-volume Way of the Lord Jesus. Grisez moves between the spheres of philosophy and theology, articulating a new form of natural law thinking, consonant with the teachings of the Roman Catholic magisterium.Grisez...
) drafted a minority report working paper that was signed by Ford and three other theologian priests on the commission, stating that the Church should not and could not change its long-standing teaching. Even though intended for the Pope only, the commission's report and two working papers (the minority report and the majority's rebuttal to it) were leaked to the press in 1967, raising public expectations of liberalization.
The rationale for issuing the minority report was spelled out:
- "If it should be declared that contraception is not evil in itself, then we should have to concede frankly that the Holy Spirit had been on the side of the Protestant churches in 1930 [when Casti ConnubiiCasti ConnubiiCastī Connūbiī was a papal encyclical promulgated by Pope Pius XI on December 31, 1930 in response to the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican church. It stressed the sanctity of marriage, prohibited Catholics from using any form of artificial birth control, and reaffirmed the prohibition on abortion...
was promulgated) and in 1951.
- “It should likewise have to be admitted that for a half a century the Spirit failed to protect Pius XI, Pius XII, and a large part of the Catholic hierarchy from a very serious error. This would mean that the leaders of the Church, acting with extreme imprudence, had condemned thousands of innocent human acts, forbidding, under pain of eternal damnation, a practice which would now be sanctioned. The fact can neither be denied nor ignored that these same acts would now be declared licit on the grounds of principles cited by the Protestants, which Popes and Bishops have either condemned, or at least not approved."
Papal decision
However, Paul VI explicitly rejected his commission's recommendations in the text of Humanae Vitae, noting the 72 member commission had not been unanimous (4 theologian priests had dissented, and 1 cardinal and 2 bishops had voted that contraception was intrinsically evil--significantly Cardinal Ottaviani, the commission's president and Bishop Colombo, the papal theologian). Humanae Vitae did, however, explicitly allow the modern forms of natural family planningNatural family planning
Natural family planning is a term referring to the family planning methods approved by the Roman Catholic Church. In accordance with the Church's requirements for sexual behavior in keeping with its philosophy of the dignity of the human person, NFP excludes the use of other methods of birth...
that were then being developed.