Love is for Life: Pastoral Letter of the Irish Bishops
PART II Putting Love Into Love
(12.) SEX AND PARENTHOOD
(12.1) Children, the precious gift of marriage
88. The document, Familiaris Consortio, says:
- According to the plan of God, marriage is the foundation of the wider
community of the family, since the very institution of marriage and conjugal
love are ordained to the procreation and education of children, in whom
they find their crowning.In its most profound reality, love is essentially
a gift; and conjugal love. . . does not end with the couple, because it
makes them capable of the greatest possible gift, the gift by which they
become cooperators with God for giving life to a new human person. Thus
the couple, while giving themselves to one another, give not just themselves
but also the reality of children, who are a living reflection of their love,
a permanent sign of conjugal unity and a living and inseparable synthesis
of their being a father and mother.
- When they become parents, spouses receive from God the gift of a
new responsibility. Their parental love is called to become for the children
the visible sign of the very love of God, "from whom every family in
heaven and on earth is named" (Ephesians 3:15) (no.14).
(12.2) Responsible Parenthood
89. The Vatican Council stressed the fact that married love must of
its nature be open to the giving of new life. It then went on to describe
the qualities of responsible parenthood, emphasising that this requires
the "harmonizing (of) conjugal love with the responsible transmission
of life" . (See Appendix I.) In the encyclical Humanae Vitae, Pope
Paul VI clarified the concept of "responsible parenthood", which,
he said, "today is rightly much insisted upon, and which also must
be exactly understood" (H. V. 10). It involves knowledge of
and respect for "the biological laws which are part of the human person
" . It involves control by reason and will of innate drives and emotions.
It involves, in the light of physical, economic, psychological and social
conditions, a prudent and generous decision to have a large family; or,
on the other hand, a decision, "made for serious reasons and with due
respect for the moral law" to avoid for the time being, or even for
an indeterminate period, a new birth" (H. V. 10).
90. "Due respect for the moral law" means that decisions regarding
family size must be based on genuine reasons and not on mere selfishness
. It also means that the methods used to carry out the decision should,
in the words of the Vatican Council, respect, reveal and protect "the
integral meaning of conjugal love", and "preserve the full sense
of mutual self-giving and human procreation" . There are various forms
of natural family planning and these respect these criteria. These methods
are based upon insight into the Creator's design of the cycle of fertility.
In sexual union, the partners, in giving themselves to each other, should
at the same time become more aware of their masculine or feminine identity
and become more fulfilled as male or as female. At the same time, each partner
should accept the other fully as woman or fully as man. The more completely
each partner understands the other and accepts the other in the partner's
sexual otherness, the more deep and true their union will be. Everything
that enables the man to understand and to accept the female nature, and
vice versa, serves to make the union more complete. When the couple are
aware of the complementarity and partnership of husband and wife in the
procreation of life, when both of them have insight into the mysterious
and marvellous feminine cycle of life-bearing, they can enter more profoundly
into the wonder of their sexuality and their union with each other. Knowledge
of the cycle of life enables the man to understand more fully the bodily
and the emotional and the spiritual nature of the woman, and enables him
to accept and to respect her in the trueness of her femininity.
91. The cycle of life-bearing itself provides times when nature 'rests'
in its rhythmic task of setting up the conditions for new life. These times
of 'rest' are themselves part of God's plan for human fertility. When married
partners avail themselves of these times to express their love in sexual
union, provided this is done with "a generous human and Christian sense
of responsibility", they are loving one another in full peace with
God, because they are respecting the divine plan "for human procreation
in the context of true love".
92. Natural family planning frees couples in the planning of their families
from medication and from technology, with their known harmful side effects.
It has the great merit of making responsible parenthood a joint responsibility
of husband and wife together. Contraceptives, on the contrary, nearly always
place the responsibility solely on the woman. It is deplorable that women
who wish to use natural family planning are sometimes unable to do so because
their husbands refuse to cooperate. Husbands and wives have equal duties
in respect of responsible parenthood. This requires that husbands cooperate
with their wives in making responsible parenthood possible through morally
acceptable means. As Pope John Paul II put it in the document, "The
Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World", Familiaris Consortio:
- The choice of the natural rhythms involves accepting the cycle of the
person, that is the woman, and thereby accepting dialogue, reciprocal respect,
shared responsibility and self control. To accept the cycle and to enter
into dialogue means to recognise both the spiritual and corporal character
of conjugal communion and to live personal love with its requirement of
fidelity. In this context, the couple comes to experience how conjugal communion
is enriched with those values of tenderness and affection which constitute
the inner soul of human sexuality, in its physical dimensions also. (No.
32)
93. Women who cannot practice natural family planning and couples who, in
spite of their sincere efforts, find it is not effective for them, can feel
driven to the use of contraceptives. Married couples in modern society are
under many pressures to practise artificial contraception. There are housing
problems, financial difficulties, unemployment, and many other factors causing
severe strain in marriage and family life. There is lack of love and of
communication and of mutual consideration in some marriages, and specifically
in the sexual area of marriage. There is the fear of losing one another's
affection by any avoidance of sexual relations. There is pressure from modern
culture to accept contraception as a normal part of married life. There
is also genuine confusion among some Catholics about the morality of artificial
contraception. Such circumstances as these can diminish freedom and lessen
guilt, and can at times remove them entirely. To quote Familiaris Consortio:
- As Mother, the Church is close to the many married couples who find
themselves in difficulty over this important point of the moral life: she
knows well their situation, which is often very arduous and at times truly
tormented by difficulties of every kind, not only individual difficulties
but social ones as well; she knows that many couples encounter difficulties
not only in the concrete fulfilment of the moral norm but even in understanding
its inherent values. (No. 33)
The only way really to fail in this respect is to stop trying. It should
be remembered that, as has been said, "the saint is only the sinner
who wouldn't stop trying".
94. Nevertheless we have to say that the Catholic Church clearly teaches
that artificial contraception is in itself always objectively wrong . Couples
must, therefore, do all that is in their power to avoid or to give up this
practice, relying on God's help to make possible what may sometimes seem
humanly impossible. They must also have great trust in God's grace, ever
present to them in the sacrament of marriage. What seems to them impossible
can become possible by God's power and by the grace of the sacrament, and
by their own persevering efforts. If they fail in their efforts, they must
remember that God never fails in His mercy. His compassion and forgiveness
are always available to them in the sacrament of penance or reconciliation.
Here, no matter what has gone wrong, men and women can always find that
peace of conscience without which there cannot be happiness in marriage.
95. Priests, when this problem is brought to them in the confessional, must
indeed present the authentic teaching of the Church. As Pope Paul VI said:
- To diminish in no way the saving teaching of Christ constitutes an
eminent form of charity for souls (H. V. 29 cited in F. C. 33).
Priests must also have a compassionate pastoral understanding of the real
difficulties facing many married people. They must do everything possible
to make the experience of the sacrament of reconciliation an experience
of Christ's compassion and healing and peace, an encounter with Christ's
patient, understanding love. Priests will remember St Paul's injunction
to Timothy:
- Proclaim the message and, welcome or unwelcome, insist on it. .
. But do all with patience and with the intention of teaching (2
Timothy 4:12).
The Church's teaching about the wrongness of contraception is a prescription
for happiness, not for tension. It is a programme for peace of conscience,
not for anxiety and guilt. It is sad that some have given up the practice
of confession because of what they experienced in the past as insensitivity
on the part of some confessors in this domain . It has been truly said that
many people throughout history have left the Church because they found in
her too little compassion; but few have left her because they found her
too forgiving.
(12.3) The Contraceptive Mentality
96. One great factor in the contemporary revolution in sexual behaviour
is the introduction of contraceptives and their constantly wider and freer
availability. It is more than half a century now since Bertrand Russell
declared that contraceptives call for a completely new ethic of sex. It
has become clearer in recent times how radically "new" that ethic
is, and how deeply it is in conflict with Christian tradition.
97. Contraceptives are in essence divisive of what God has united. Primarily
and directly contraceptives separate sexual intercourse from its intrinsic
openness to life-giving. Contraceptives also increase the propensity and
the temptation to separate sex from fidelity, permanence and exclusive relationship
. They facilitate the separation of sex from love. They make it easier to
separate sex from marriage. Much of what nowadays is called "family
planning" has no relevance either to marriage or the family.
98. It is by no means an accident that the spreading wave of contraceptives
has everywhere been associated with an increase in pre-marital and extra-marital
sex and of venereal disease. One undeniable effect of the wider and wider
availability of contraceptives in other countries has been to encourage
sexual permissiveness. In turn, the spread of sexual permissiveness calls
for more and more contraception and sterilisation, with abortion as a "back-up"
remedy for "contraceptive failure". Some widely used contraceptive
pills and devices are in fact abortifacients under another name. Intra-uterine
devices are admittedly abortifacient in their operation. The borderline
between contraception and abortion tends to become blurred in these situations.
Modern society, from this point of view, might well be said to be organised
on the basis of sex without self-control.
99. It is a sad fact that sexual relationships between young people, even
at school-going age, is becoming more common in Ireland. This is a cause
of grave concern and great sadness to parents and to all who care about
young people and about the quality of life in our society. We cannot be
complacent about the problem or pretend that it does not exist. Some will
argue that the obvious remedy is to make contraceptives more widely available,
especially to young unmarried people. This view may be sincerely held, but
it is nevertheless dangerously mistaken. In countries where contraceptives
are universally available and free, and where large sums of public money
are spent in officially promoting their use, the incidence of teenage pregnancy
and the rate of births out of wedlock have remained at very high levels.
The widespread use of abortion has obviously reduced the overall number
of births, but it has not significantly affected the percentage of births
out of wedlock. Thus in England and Wales, children born out of wedlock
constituted 8.4 per cent of total births in 1971. The percentage increased
to 14.99 per cent in 1983, in spite of the fact that 140,000 abortions were
performed in that year. In Northern Ireland the figures were 3.8 per cent
in 1971 and 8.7 per cent in 1983. In the Republic of Ireland, the corresponding
figures were 2.7 per cent in 1971 and 6.8 per cent in 1983. The truth is
that, the more contraceptives there are, and the more they are made available
to young people, the more sexual indulgence there will be, and the more
will irresponsible attitudes towards sex be encouraged. The more also will
teenagers, and particularly teenage girls, be put under pressure to engage
in sexual intercourse.
100. Much modern advice invites young people to believe, from their early
teens, that intercourse with a boyfriend or girlfriend is quite normal and
right so long as intercourse is not "unprotected". In the name
of sexual freedom, young people in modern society are almost being denied
the freedom to say no to sexual intercourse. A truly caring society would
not allow its young people to be emotionally harassed in this way at an
age when they are still only in the process of maturing emotionally and
are vulnerable. Contraceptives are a false and facile solution to a problem
which is fundamentally moral and spiritual in nature. The remedy must be
sought at deeper levels of moral living and moral and spiritual formation
of the young. There can be no way to sexual responsibility except through
self-control and a truly Christian vision of sexuality in the community.
The wide availability of contraceptives positively discourages self-control
and trivialises sexual love. It leaves young people open to sad deception
and leaves their innocence and their idealism open to heartless exploitation.
It should also be remembered that young people sometimes turn to a sexual
partner to find from him or her the love which they have not found at home,
and to find escape from that loneliness into which a loveless society can
relegate them.
101. The insight of Bertrand Russell was acute. His logic was accurate.
The contraceptive mentality has fostered the wide acceptance of a new sexual
ethic. But let it be stated clearly that it has not made that "new
morality" right or true. What we have in modern society is not a new
morality of sex but rather a radical rejection of the morality of the entire
Christian tradition. The new patterns of sexual behaviour face all of us
in the Church today with a formidable task, the task of bringing together
again what God made one but man persists in dividing. Pope Paul called it
a "great work of education, of progress and of love". Pope John
Paul has recently spoken of "an education for love rooted in faith".
102. The intrinsic connection of sexual union with marriage, and its intrinsic
connection with fertility, are clearly laid down in God's plan "in
the beginning", as we find it in the Book of Genesis. Man and woman
are called to "cleave" to one another "in one flesh",
and thereby to "be fruitful and multiply". This plan of God is
written also into the being of man and woman. It is imprinted in them, in
body and in spirit, in instinct and emotion, in conscious thought and in
unconscious need. Sexual love impels man and woman to give themselves completely
to each other, to belong wholly to each other; to share life together; to
be no longer two but one, and to be two-in-one not just in body but also
in spirit, mind and will. The perfect embodiment of a man's and a woman's
two-in-oneness is their child. The greatest expression of their shared life
is when man and woman share together in creating new life, which is "flesh
of the flesh and bone of the bone" of them both. A child is a man's
and a woman's love for one another smiling back at both of them, in a face
which unites the very features of them both.
(12.4) Sterilisation
103. When surgical sterilisation was practised in Nazi Germany some
fifty years ago, it aroused general disgust and revulsion. It is surely
a sign of moral decline that now the same operation is widely regarded as
morally acceptable and even socially "progressive". It was of
course predictable that the propaganda for contraceptives, and especially
for the contraceptive pill, should lead to acceptance of sterilisation.
A major effect of most contraceptive pills is to bring about temporary sterilisation.
From this to surgical sterilisation is a short and logical path.
104. No Catholic should be in any doubt about the teaching of the Church
in this matter. There is no uncertainty or ambiguity about the teaching.
We stated it in our Pastoral Letter "HUMAN LIFE IS SACRED", in
1975. The same teaching of the Church was reaffirmed, in that same year,
by the Holy See, in specific reference to the responsibilities of Catholic
hospitals and Catholic medical and paramedical personnel. This teaching
declares that any form of sterilisation, whose direct and immediate and
intended effect is to render the sexual faculty incapable of procreation,
is direct sterilisation, and as such is absolutely forbidden according to
the doctrine of the Church. Catholic hospitals may not provide facilities
for such operations. Catholic medical personnel may not cooperate with them.
As the document from the Holy See declares, such cooperation would be totally
incompatible with the duty of Catholics to defend and to witness to the
primacy of the moral order. There should be recognition in the Health Services
of the right of doctors or nurses to refuse, on grounds of conscience, to
participate in such operations. It is deplorable that in some countries
sterilisation is offered after childbirth, as a routine procedure, to women
who have already had one or two children. At a time when mothers may be
emotionally very vulnerable and open to suggestion, they can be led to consent
to an operation with which their conscience and their instincts will later
reproach them bitterly.
105. Sterilisation creates serious risks for the psychological well-being
of husband and wife. The sterilised wife can come to feel herself a "sexual
object" for the use of her husband. The sterilised husband can come
to feel himself as less than fully a man. Each can feel damaged in his or
her personhood by permanent loss of the power of parenthood. A person who
has sought sterilisation may at a later date have an intense longing to
have a child. A sterilised spouse may become widowed and may contract a
second marriage in which there is a strong desire for children. Often the
regret and remorse following sterilisation are bitter and destructive.
106. In some modern societies there is widespread acceptance of the view
that mentally handicapped persons and those likely to transmit hereditary
handicap should be sterilised. Jean Vanier, who understands the emotional
needs of the mentally handicapped as few men have ever done, totally rejects
this view. He declares that sterilisation damages the handicapped in their
self esteem, making them seem to themselves to be sexual objects, easily
available for sex, but starved of the self-esteem and affection and love
and security which are their deepest need Sterilisation leaves them ready
for sexual exploitation by others, while at the same time reinforcing their
own sense of being rejected and unwanted.
107. Sterilisation, however, can be an unavoidable side-effect of an operation
or medical treatment for illness or disease. Then its moral character is
completely different. We have been talking here of direct sterilisation,
that is to say, sterilisation which is directly and intentionally brought
about in order to prevent pregnancy. In such a case, the procedure deliberately
sets out to make it impossible for the act of sex to be open to the gift
of life. It separates what God has made one.
108. Women or men who have sought this operation, must not, however, feel
excluded from God's love and forgiveness. There are circumstances in which
people can feel driven to such expedients, almost in spite of themselves.
There are stresses and difficulties which can diminish responsibility and
guilt. St John has the wonderfully consoling words:
- Whatever accusations (our conscience) may raise against us, .
. . God is greater than our conscience, and he knows everything (1
John 3:20-21).
The only way we can fail to receive God 's forgiveness is to fail to ask
for it, above all in the sacrament of reconciliation, which he gave to his
Church as an ever-present source of pardon and peace.
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