Why the Church is against family planning

(Continued from last issue)

WHAT is infallibility of the pope? According to Catholic dogma, the pope is God's representative on earth and God guides him as he cares for His flock. When the pope formulates a doctrine, he is simply transmitting this dogma on God's behalf. Therefore, the teaching cannot possibly be in error. Thus, the pope's teachings are absolute, final and infallible.

Such an arrangement placed enormous control and power in the hands of the pope over hundreds of millions of Catholics all over the world. The power and control of the Vatican extends not only across the national borders (Italy), it also went even beyond the borders to every side of the globe.

Even though the Pope could no longer control the laity by means of its governance as it had in the Papal States which would later become Italy, the Holy See could exercise control directly by adopting a policy of psychological coercion founded on a new doctrine: papal infallibility.

This was a brilliant concept and it worked for a century. But since its introduction in 1870, the Catholic intelligentsia, among them theologians, historians and bishops, recognized that at some point in the future, this principle would lead to self-destruction of the institution. Times were certain to change and in unpredictable ways.

They were convinced that one day, encumbered by pope’s unchangeable position, the Church would find itself down a blind alley from which there would be no escape and faced with inevitable self-destruction as a result of a grave loss of credibility. These distinguished scholars were strongly opposed to this principle, and as a consequence, many of them left the Church. The blind alley turned out to be the issue of birth control—contraception and abortion.

Since the adoption of the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae (Pope Paul VI, July 25, 1968), there has been a hemorrhage in the Church's credibility. Humanae Vitae ruled out any change of the Church's position on artificial birth control for all time. However, it did allow natural birth control as the only method available to married couples. It must be understood that prior to the encyclical Humanae Vitae, even natural birth control was not allowed by the popes.

The proponents of papal infallibility could not imagine the population explosion of the last half of this century. In the late 20^th century Catholic Scholars and the critics argued: “We find it hard to believe in those who claim moral leadership while implacably resisting any serious solutions to the population problem worldwide. Just as its critics (in 1870) had predicted, institutional self-destruction is now well under way. But, as it stands now, the Church cannot change its position on birth control without undermining all of its dogma. The Vatican is now obliged to protect the fundamental doctrine of papal infallibility at all costs.”

Self-destruction as a result of loss of credibility is underway but the hemorrhage is progressing slowly. Every pope remains hopeful he can turn this around. He is convinced that if he changes the Church's position on birth control and destroys the principle of infallibility, self-destruction will be very swift. We know that this matter was the focus of his attention for several years in the 1960s.
(West Leyte Weekly Express Jan. 10-16, 2011)