Love is for Life: Pastoral Letter of the Irish Bishops
Appendix II
Statements by the Irish Bishops regarding Civil Law and Morality.
A. In 1973, with reference to proposals for legislative change regarding
the sale of contraceptives in the Republic of Ireland, the Catholic Bishops
stated: (on 25 November, 1973):
- The question at issue is not whether artificial contraception is morally
right or wrong. The clear teaching of the Catholic Church is that it is
morally wrong. No change in State law can make the use of contraceptives
morally right since what is wrong in itself remains wrong, regardless of
what State law says.
- It does not follow, of course, that he State is bound to prohibit the
importation and sale of contraceptives. There are many things which the
Catholic Church holds to be morally wrong and no one has ever suggested,
least of all the Church herself, that they should be prohibited by the State.
- Those who insist on seeing the issue purely in terms of the State enforcing,
or not enforcing Catholic moral teaching, are therefore missing the point.
- The real question facing the legislators is: What effect would the increased
availability of contraceptives have on the quality of life in the Republic
of Ireland?
- That is a question of public, not private, morality. What the legislators
have to decide is whether a change in the law would, on balance, do more
harm than good, by damaging the character of the society for which they
are responsible.
We then pointed out the harmful consequences for the moral quality of life
in society of the increased availability of contraceptives, and went on:
- The factors outlined above are important and they have tended to be
overlooked in public discussion. They should be put in the balance, along
with such other factors as the actual degree of inconvenience which the
present law and practice cause to people of other religious persuasions,
and a realistic assessment as to whether a change in the law would have
any significant effect at the present time on attitudes towards the reunification
of Ireland....
- The issue before the legislators and the people is therefore a grave
one. People must try to weigh up all the issues fairly in their own minds,
asking themselves what kind of society do they want, for themselves and
their children.
B. In 1978, with reference to proposed legislation dealing with family planning
and contraception, we stated (4 April, 1978):
- There is a public and social aspect to this matter....
- In the area of contraception, laws can affect the way people think about
marriage, about the family, about fidelity. Laws can affect people's attitudes
about relations between the sexes, both within marriage and outside it.
Laws affect the moral environment in which we live. Laws can make decent
living for the young more difficult or less difficult. The law-maker has
to consider the effects which new legislation in this area is likely to
have. He must weigh the good against the bad. The good which a law may do
must be set against the harm which it can do.
- It may be said that conscience is a sufficient safeguard of moral standards.
But conscience itself can become confused and weakened by society's attitudes.
A change in the law can deceive people into thinking that the morality has
changed also.
- If we point to some of the difficulties inherent in the framing of amending
legislation in the area of contraception, this is because we feel that certain
aspects of the problem may be ignored in public discussion. We do so also
because we are convinced that certain kinds of legislation would almost
certainly bring about consequences about which people might not otherwise
be forewarned.
- The matters to which we shall refer are, all of them, questions of public
morality. They are concerned with the impact on society which certain changes
in legislation would be likely to have. Law-makers have a moral obligation
to take account of this moral and social dimension of new legislation.
- Societies in which contraceptives have become generally accepted and
widely used have experienced a lowering of standards in sexual morality.
Marital infidelity has increased. The stability of the family has been weakened.
A whole new attitude towards sexual relationships has developed. Promiscuity
has tended to increase. Legalisation of abortion has usually followed.
- Some of these evils, sad to say, are already amongst us. We must expect
trends in this direction here to be increased if contraceptives were to
become widely available in this country....
- The goodwill and good intentions of the legislators should be recognised.
Many of them are themselves parents and they share the concern of people
generally to protect marriage and the family and to avoid creating new problems
for young people trying to be good in a world which already makes things
so difficult for them. In particular, legislators would presumably seek
to do everything the law could do to limit and control the availability
of contraceptives and to oppose their spread among young unmarried people.
- Experience in other countries indicates, however, that where contraceptives
have been made legally available, any controls embodied in the legislation
have had only very limited effect.
- The multi-national contraceptive industry sets aside large sums for
advertising. This exerts a constant pressure on people to use contraceptives.
Some advertising is beamed explicitly on the young, even from their earliest
teens. Some is distributed widely through the post. The sales campaigns
by contraceptive manufacturers in other countries have certainly contributed
to the general decline in sexual morality. The advertising and the promotion
of contraceptives are a question of public morality and require very careful
attention from legislators....
- The issues which we have been raising are issues of public morality,
affecting the wellbeing of our whole society. No responsible person wishes
to see multiplied in our country the social evils to which we have called
attention....
In the Pro-Life Amendment debate, we stated ( 22 August, 1983):
- There are people who are sincerely opposed to abortion and yet who feel
that no referendum should take place at all or that a different form of
words should have been used. We respect their point of view.
- However, a concrete situation faces us now. A form of words has been
decided upon by the Oireachtas. It is this form of words which is being
put before the people. We recognise the right of each person to vote according
to conscience. Each voter has the responsibility of weighing the moral consequences
of his or her vote and of making a conscientious decision in the privacy
of the polling booth.
In our oral submissions to the New Ireland Forum, we stated (9 February,
1984):
- The Catholic Church in Ireland totally rejects the concept of a confessional
state. We have not sought and we do not seek a Catholic State for a Catholic
people. We believe that the alliance of Church and State is harmful for
the Church and harmful for the State. We rejoiced when the ambiguous formula
regarding the special position of the Catholic Church was struck out of
the Constitution by the electorate of the Republic. The Catholic Church
in Ireland has no power and seeks no power except the power of the Gospel
it preaches and the consciences and the convictions of those who freely
accept that teaching....
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