To the people of God of northern Colorado.
Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord,
1. Thirty years ago this week, Pope Paul VI issued his encyclical letter
Humanae Vitae
(Of Human Life), which reaffirmed the Church's constant teaching on the regulation of births. It
is certainly the most misunderstood papal intervention of this century. It was the spark which led
to three decades of doubt and dissent among many Catholics, especially in the developed
countries. With the passage of time, however, it has also proven prophetic. It teaches the truth.
My purpose in this pastoral letter, therefore, is simple. I believe the message of Humanae Vitae is
not a burden but a joy. I believe this encyclical offers a key to deeper, richer marriages. And so
what I seek from the family of our local Church is not just a respectful nod toward a document
which critics dismiss as irrelevant, but an active and sustained effort to study Humanae Vitae; to
teach it faithfully in our parishes; and to encourage our married couples to live it.
I. THE WORLD SINCE 1968
2. Sooner or later, every pastor counsels someone struggling with an addiction. Usually
the problem is alcohol or drugs. And usually the scenario is the same. The addict will
acknowledge the problem but claim to be powerless against it. Or, alternately, the addict will
deny having any problem at all, even if the addiction is destroying his or her health and wrecking
job and family. No matter how much sense the pastor makes; no matter how true and persuasive
his arguments; and no matter how life-threatening the situation, the addict simply cannot
understand—or cannot act on—the counsel. The addiction, like a thick pane of glass, divides the
addict from anything or anyone that might help.
3. One way to understand the history of Humanae Vitae is to examine the past three
decades through this metaphor of addiction. I believe the developed world finds this encyclical so
hard to accept not because of any defect in Paul VI's reasoning, but because of the addictions and
contradictions it has inflicted upon itself, exactly as the Holy Father warned.
4. In presenting his encyclical, Paul VI cautioned against four main problems (HV 17) that
would arise if Church teaching on the regulation of births was ignored. First, he warned that the
widespread use of contraception would lead to "conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of
morality." Exactly this has happened. Few would deny that the rates of abortion, divorce, family
breakdown, wife and child abuse, venereal disease and out of wedlock births have all massively
increased since the mid-1960s. Obviously, the birth control pill has not been the only factor in this
unraveling. But it has played a major role. In fact, the cultural revolution since 1968, driven at
least in part by transformed attitudes toward sex, would not have been possible or sustainable
without easy access to reliable contraception. In this, Paul VI was right.
5. Second, he also warned that man would lose respect for woman and "no longer [care]
for her physical and psychological equilibrium," to the point that he would consider her "as a
mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion." In
other words, according to the Pope, contraception might be marketed as liberating for women,
but the real "beneficiaries" of birth control pills and devices would be men. Three decades later,
exactly as Paul VI suggested, contraception has released males—to a historically unprecedented
degree—from responsibility for their sexual aggression. In the process, one of the stranger
ironies of the contraception debate of the past generation has been this: Many feminists have
attacked the Catholic Church for her alleged disregard of women, but the Church in
Humanae Vitae identified and rejected sexual exploitation of women years before that message entered the
cultural mainstream. Again, Paul VI was right.
6. Third, the Holy Father also warned that widespread use of contraception would place a
"dangerous weapon . . . in the hands of those public authorities who take no heed of moral
exigencies." As we have since discovered, eugenics didn't disappear with Nazi racial theories in
1945. Population control policies are now an accepted part of nearly every foreign aid discussion.
The massive export of contraceptives, abortion and sterilization by the developed world to
developing countries—frequently as a prerequisite for aid dollars and often in direct contradiction
to local moral traditions—is a thinly disguised form of population warfare and cultural re-engineering. Again, Paul VI was right.
7. Fourth, Pope Paul warned that contraception would mislead human beings into
thinking they had unlimited dominion over their own bodies, relentlessly turning the human person
into the object of his or her own intrusive power. Herein lies another irony: In fleeing into the
false freedom provided by contraception and abortion, an exaggerated feminism has actively
colluded in women's dehumanization. A man and a woman participate uniquely in the glory of
God by their ability to co-create new life with Him. At the heart of contraception, however, is the
assumption that fertility is an infection which must be attacked and controlled, exactly as
antibiotics attack bacteria. In this attitude, one can also see the organic link between
contraception and abortion. If fertility can be misrepresented as an infection to be attacked,
so too can new life. In either case, a defining element of woman's identity —her potential for
bearing new life—is recast as a weakness requiring vigilant distrust and "treatment." Woman
becomes the object of the tools she relies on to ensure her own liberation and defense, while man
takes no share of the burden. Once again, Paul VI was right.
8. From the Holy Father's final point, much more has flowed: In vitro fertilization,
cloning, genetic manipulation and embryo experimentation are all descendants of contraceptive
technology. In fact, we have drastically and naively underestimated the effects of technology not
only on external society, but on our own interior human identity. As author Neil Postman has
observed, technological change is not additive but ecological. A significant new technology does
not "add" something to a society; it changes everything—just as a drop of red dye does not
remain discrete in a glass of water, but colors and changes every single molecule of the liquid.
Contraceptive technology, precisely because of its impact on sexual intimacy, has subverted our
understanding of the purpose of sexuality, fertility and marriage itself. It has detached them from
the natural, organic identity of the human person and disrupted the ecology of human
relationships. It has scrambled our vocabulary of love, just as pride scrambled the vocabulary of
Babel.
9. Now we deal daily with the consequences. I am writing these thoughts during a July
week when, within days of each other, news media have informed us that nearly 14 percent of
Coloradans are or have been involved in drug or alcohol dependency; a governor's commission
has praised marriage while simultaneously recommending steps that would subvert it in Colorado
by extending parallel rights and responsibilities to persons in "committed relationships," including
same-sex relationships; and a young east coast couple have been sentenced for brutally slaying
their newborn baby. According to news reports, one or both of the young unmarried parents
"bashed in [the baby's] skull while he was still alive, and then left his battered body in a Dumpster
to die." These are the headlines of a culture in serious distress. U.S. society is wracked with
sexual identity and behavior dysfunctions, family collapse and a general coarsening of attitudes
toward the sanctity of human life. It's obvious to everyone but an addict: We have a problem.
It's killing us as a people. So what are we going to do about it? What I want to suggest is that if
Paul VI was right about so many of the consequences deriving from contraception, it is because
he was right about contraception itself. In seeking to become whole again as persons and as a
people of faith, we need to begin by revisiting Humanae Vitae with open hearts. Jesus said the
truth would make us free. Humanae Vitae is filled with truth. It is therefore a key to our
freedom.
II. WHAT HUMANAE VITAE REALLY SAYS
10. Perhaps one of the flaws in communicating the message of Humanae Vitae over the
last 30 years has been the language used in teaching it. The duties and responsibilities of married
life are numerous. They're also serious. They need to be considered carefully, and prayerfully, in
advance. But few couples understand their love in terms of academic theology. Rather, they fall
in love. That's the vocabulary they use. It's that simple and revealing. They surrender to each
other. They give themselves to each other. They fall into each other in order to fully possess,
and be possessed by, each other. And rightly so. In married love, God intends that spouses
should find joy and delight, hope and abundant life, in and through each other—all ordered in a
way which draws husband and wife, their children, and all who know them, deeper into God's
embrace.
11. As a result, in presenting the nature of Christian marriage to a new generation, we
need to articulate its fulfilling satisfactions at least as well as its duties. The Catholic attitude
toward sexuality is anything but puritanical, repressive or anti-carnal. God created the world and
fashioned the human person in His own image. Therefore the body is good. In fact, it's often
been a source of great humor for me to listen incognito as people simultaneously complain about
the alleged "bottled-up sexuality" of Catholic moral doctrine, and the size of many good Catholic
families. (From where, one might ask, do they think the babies come?) Catholic marriage—exactly like Jesus Himself—is not about scarcity but abundance. It's not about sterility, but
rather the fruitfulness which flows from unitive, procreative love. Catholic married love always
implies the possibility of new life; and because it does, it drives out loneliness and affirms the
future. And because it affirms the future, it becomes a furnace of hope in a world prone to
despair. In effect, Catholic marriage is attractive because it is true. It's designed for the creatures
we are: persons meant for communion. Spouses complete each other. When God joins a woman
and man together in marriage, they create with Him a new wholeness; a "belonging" which is so
real, so concrete, that a new life, a child, is its natural expression and seal. This is what the
Church means when she teaches that Catholic married love is by its nature both unitive and
procreative—not either/or.
12. But why can't a married couple simply choose the unitive aspect of marriage and
temporarily block or even permanently prevent its procreative nature? The answer is as simple
and radical as the Gospel itself. When spouses give themselves honestly and entirely to each
other, as the nature of married love implies and even demands, that must include their whole selves—and the most intimate, powerful part of each person is his or her fertility. Contraception
not only denies this fertility and attacks procreation; in doing so, it necessarily damages unity as
well. It is the equivalent of spouses saying: "I'll give you all I am—except my fertility; I'll accept
all you are—except your fertility." This withholding of self inevitably works to isolate and divide
the spouses, and unravel the holy friendship between them . . . maybe not immediately and
overtly, but deeply, and in the long run often fatally for the marriage.
13. This is why the Church is not against "artificial" contraception. She is against all
contraception. The notion of "artificial" has nothing to do with the issue. In fact, it tends to
confuse discussion by implying that the debate is about a mechanical intrusion into the body's
organic system. It is not. The Church has no problem with science appropriately intervening to
heal or enhance bodily health. Rather, the Church teaches that all contraception is morally wrong; and not only wrong, but seriously wrong. The covenant which husband and wife enter at
marriage requires that all intercourse remain open to the transmission of new life. This is what
becoming "one flesh" implies: complete self-giving, without reservation or exception, just as
Christ withheld nothing of Himself from His bride, the Church, by dying for her on the cross. Any
intentional interference with the procreative nature of intercourse necessarily involves spouses'
withholding themselves from each other and from God, who is their partner in sacramental love.
In effect, they steal something infinitely precious—themselves—from each other and from their
Creator.
14. And this is why natural family planning (NFP) differs not merely in style but in moral
substance from contraception as a means of regulating family size. NFP is not contraception.
Rather, it is a method of fertility awareness and appreciation. It is an entirely different approach
to regulating birth. NFP does nothing to attack fertility, withhold the gift of oneself from one's
spouse, or block the procreative nature of intercourse. The marriage covenant requires that each
act of intercourse be fully an act of self-giving, and therefore open to the possibility of new life.
But when, for good reasons, a husband and wife limit their intercourse to the wife's natural
periods of infertility during a month, they are simply observing a cycle which God Himself created
in the woman. They are not subverting it. And so they are living within the law of God's love.
15. There are, of course, many wonderful benefits to the practice of NFP. The wife
preserves herself from intrusive chemicals or devices and remains true to her natural cycle. The
husband shares in the planning and responsibility for NFP. Both learn a greater degree of self-mastery and a deeper respect for each other. It's true that NFP involves sacrifices and periodic
abstinence from intercourse. It can, at times, be a difficult road. But so can any serious Christian
life, whether ordained, consecrated, single or married. Moreover, the experience of tens of
thousands of couples has shown that, when lived prayerfully and unselfishly, NFP deepens and
enriches marriage and results in greater intimacy—and greater joy. In the Old Testament, God
told our first parents to be fruitful and multiply (Gn 1:28). He told us to choose life (Dt 30:19).
He sent His son, Jesus, to bring us life abundantly (Jn 10:10) and to remind us that His yoke is
light (Mt 11:30). I suspect, therefore, that at the heart of Catholic ambivalence toward Humanae Vitae is not a crisis of sexuality, Church authority or moral relevance, but rather a question of
faith: Do we really believe in God's goodness? The Church speaks for her Bridegroom, Jesus
Christ, and believers naturally, eagerly listen. She shows married couples the path to enduring
love and a culture of life. Thirty years of history record the consequences of choosing otherwise.
III. WHAT WE NEED TO DO
16. I want to express my gratitude to the many couples who already live the message of
Humanae Vitae in their married lives. Their fidelity to the truth sanctifies their own families and
our entire community of faith. I thank in a special way those couples who teach NFP and counsel
others in responsible parenthood inspired by Church teaching. Their work too often goes
unnoticed or underappreciated—but they are powerful advocates for life in an age of confusion.
I also want to offer my prayers and encouragement to those couples who bear the cross of
infertility. In a society often bent on avoiding children, they carry the burden of yearning for
children but having none. No prayers go unanswered, and all suffering given over to the Lord
bears fruit in some form of new life. I encourage them to consider adoption, and I appeal to them
to remember that a good end can never justify a wrong means. Whether to prevent a pregnancy
or achieve one, all techniques which separate the unitive and procreative dimensions of marriage
are always wrong. Procreative techniques which turn embryos into objects and mechanically
substitute for the loving embrace of husband and wife violate human dignity and treat life as a
product. No matter how positive their intentions, these techniques advance the dangerous
tendency to reduce human life to material which can be manipulated.
17. It's never too late to turn our hearts back toward God. We are not powerless. We
can make a difference by witnessing the truth about married love and fidelity to the culture around
us. In December last year, in a pastoral letter entitled
Good News of Great Joy, I spoke of the
important vocation every Catholic has as an evangelizer. We are all missionaries. America in the
1990s, with its culture of disordered sexuality, broken marriages and fragmented families, urgently
needs the Gospel. As Pope John Paul II writes in his apostolic exhortation
On the Family (Familiaris Consortio), married couples and families have a critical role in witnessing Jesus Christ
to each other and to the surrounding culture (49, 50).
18. In that light, I ask married couples of the archdiocese to read, discuss and pray over
Humanae Vitae, Familiaris Consortio and other documents of the Church which outline Catholic
teaching on marriage and sexuality. Many married couples, unaware of the valuable wisdom
found in these materials, have deprived themselves of a beautiful source of support for their
mutual love. I especially encourage couples to examine their own consciences regarding
contraception, and I ask them to remember that "conscience" is much more than a matter of
personal preference. It requires us to search out and understand Church teaching, and to honestly
strive to conform our hearts to it. I urge them to seek sacramental Reconciliation for the times
they may have fallen into contraception. Disordered sexuality is the dominant addiction of
American society in these closing years of the century. It directly or indirectly impacts us all. As
a result, for many, this teaching may be a hard message to accept. But do not lose heart. Each of
us is a sinner. Each of us is loved by God. No matter how often we fail, God will deliver us if we
repent and ask for the grace to do His will.
19. I ask my brother priests to examine their own pastoral practices, to ensure that they
faithfully and persuasively present the Church's teaching on these issues in all their parish work.
Our people deserve the truth about human sexuality and the dignity of marriage. To accomplish
this, I ask pastors to read and implement the
Vademecum for Confessors Concerning Some Aspects of the Morality of Conjugal Life, and to study the Church's teaching on marriage and
family planning. I urge them to appoint parish coordinators to facilitate the presentation of
Catholic teaching on married love and family planning—especially NFP. Contraception is a grave
matter. Married couples need the good counsel of the Church to make right decisions. Most
married Catholics welcome the guidance of their priests, and priests should never feel intimidated
by their personal commitment to celibacy, or embarrassed by the teaching of the Church. To be
embarrassed by Church teaching is to be embarrassed by Christ's teaching. The pastoral
experience and counsel of a priest are valuable on issues like contraception precisely because he
brings new perspective to a couple and speaks for the whole Church. Moreover, the fidelity a
priest shows to his own vocation strengthens married people to live their vocation more faithfully.
20. As archbishop, I commit myself and my offices to supporting my brother priests,
deacons and their lay collaborators in presenting the whole of the Church's teaching on married
love and family planning. I owe both the clergy of our local Church and their staffs—especially
the many dedicated parish catechists—much gratitude for the good work they have already
accomplished in this area. It is my intention to ensure that courses on married love and family
planning are available on a regular basis to more and more people of the archdiocese, and that our
priests and deacons receive more extensive education in the theological and pastoral aspects of
these issues. I direct, in a particular way, our Offices of Evangelization and Catechetics;
Marriage and Family Life; Catholic Schools; Youth, Young Adult and Campus Ministries; and the
Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults to develop concrete ways to better present Church teaching
on married love to our people, and to require adequate instruction in NFP as part of all marriage
preparation programs in the archdiocese.
21. Two final points. First, the issue of contraception is not peripheral, but central and
serious in a Catholic's walk with God. If knowingly and freely engaged in, contraception is a
grave sin, because it distorts the essence of marriage: the self-giving love which, by its very
nature, is life-giving. It breaks apart what God created to be whole: the person-uniting meaning
of sex (love) and the life-giving meaning of sex (procreation). Quite apart from its cost to
individual marriages, contraception has also inflicted massive damage on society at large: initially
by driving a wedge between love and the procreation of children; and then between sex (i.e.,
recreational sex without permanent commitment) and love. Nonetheless—and this is my second
point—teaching the truth should always be done with patience and compassion, as well as
firmness. American society seems to swing peculiarly between puritanism and license. The two
generations—my own and my teachers'—which once led the dissent from Paul VI's encyclical in
this country, are generations still reacting against the American Catholic rigorism of the 1950s.
That rigorism, much of it a product of culture and not doctrine, has long since been demolished.
But the habit of skepticism remains. In reaching these people, our task is to turn their distrust to
where it belongs: toward the lies the world tells about the meaning of human sexuality, and the
pathologies those lies conceal.
22. In closing, we face an opportunity which comes only once in many decades. Thirty
years ago this week, Paul VI told the truth about married love. In doing it, he triggered a struggle
within the Church which continues to mark American Catholic life even today. Selective dissent
from Humanae Vitae soon fueled broad dissent from Church authority and attacks on the
credibility of the Church herself. The irony is that the people who dismissed Church teaching in
the 1960s soon discovered that they had subverted their own ability to pass anything along to
their children. The result is that the Church now must evangelize a world of their children's
children—adolescents and young adults raised in moral confusion, often unaware of their own
moral heritage, who hunger for meaning, community, and love with real substance. For all its
challenges, this a is tremendous new moment of possibility for the Church, and the good news is
that the Church today, as in every age, has the answers to fill the God-shaped empty places in
their hearts. My prayer is therefore simple: May the Lord grant us the wisdom to recognize the
great treasure which resides in our teaching about married love and human sexuality, the faith, joy and perseverance to live it in our own families —and the courage which Paul VI possessed to
preach it anew.
+ Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
Archbishop of Denver
July 22, 1998
Copyright © 1998 The Archdiocese of Denver. Archbishop Chaput can be contacted by email at
shepherd@archden.org
