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Unbroken Tradition in the Church Since the first clear mention of contraception by a Christian theologian, when a harsh third-century moralist accused a pope of encouraging it, the articulated judgment has been the same. In the world of the late Empire known to St. Jerome and St. Augustine, in the Ostrogothic Arles of Bishop Caesarius and the Suevian Braga of Bishop Martin, in the Paris of St. Albert and St. Thomas, in the Renaissance Rome of Sixtus V and the Renaissance Milan of St. Charles Borromeo, in the Naples of St. Alphonsus Liguori and the Liege of Charles Billuart, in the Philadelphia of Bishop Kenrick and in the Bombay of Cardinal Gracias, the teachers of the Church have taught without hesitation or variation that certain acts preventing procreation are gravely sinful. John T. Noonan, Contraception, 6
Noonan Concludes No Catholic theologian has ever taught, “Contraception is a good act." The teaching on contraception is clear and apparently fixed forever. John T. Noonan, Contraception, 6
…the purpose of marriage is not pleasure and ease but the procreation and education of children and the support of a family.... People who do not like children are swine, dunces, and blockheads, not worthy to be called men and women, because they despise the blessing of God, the Creator and Author of marriage. (Christian History, Issue 39, p. 24). Luther on Purpose of Marriage
Luther on Contraception [T]he exceedingly foul deed of Onan, the basest of wretches . . . is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest and adultery. We call it unchastity, yes, a sodomitic sin. For Onan goes into her; that is, he lies with her and copulates, and when it comes to the point of insemination, spills the semen, lest the woman conceive. Surely at such a time the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed. Accordingly, it was a most disgraceful crime. . . . Consequently, he deserved to be killed by God. He committed an evil deed. Therefore, God punished him. (Lectureson Genesis: Chapters 38-44; 1544; LW, 7, 20-21)
No self-control There can be no two opinions about the necessity of birth–control. But the only method handed down from ages past is self-control…. It is an infallible, sovereign remedy doing good to those who practise it and medical men will earn the gratitude of mankind if, instead of devising artificial means of birth-control, they will find out the means of self-control. Young India, 12-3-1925, pp.88-89 .
Contraception and Vice Artificial methods are like putting a premium upon vice. They make man and woman reckless. And the respectability that is being given to the methods must hasten the dissolution of the restraints that public opinion puts upon one. Adoption of artificial methods must result in imbecility and nervous prostration. The remedy will be found to be worse than the disease.
Freud on Perversity The abandonment of the reproductive function is the common feature of all perversions. We actually describe a sexual activity as perverse if it has given up the aim of reproduction and pursues the attainment of pleasure as an aim independent of it. [Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (Norton) (1966, 317]
Cont. So, as you will see, the breach and turning point in the development of sexual life lies in becoming subordinate to the purpose of reproduction. Everything that happens before this turn of events and equally everything that disregards it and that aims solely at obtaining pleasure is given the uncomplimentary name of "perverse" and as such is proscribed.
Like the advocates of Birth Control, the eugenists, for instance, are seeking to assist the race toward the elimination of the unfit. Both are seeking a single end but they lay emphasis upon different methods... Eugenics without Birth Control seems to us a house builded upon the sands. It is at the mercy of the rising stream of the unfit. ("Birth Control and Racial Betterment,"Birth Control Review, Feb. 1919, 11-12. Margaret Sanger and Eugenics
Proud Catholics Many laity admired their Church’s increasingly lonely defense of a procreative sexual ethic. Many shared their clergy’s anxieties when it came to emancipated views of sex. And a great many Catholics responded with a visceral surge of tribal loyalty when public proponents of birth control attacked the Catholic Church. The story was one of idealism, too, especially after the Second World War, when the teaching was increasingly presented in personalist terms and in a context of national prosperity. (4-5)
Theological Studies 1962 Since theological discussion of the anovulant drugs began some four or more years ago, moralists have never been less than unanimous in their assertion that natural law cannot countenance the use of these progestational steroids for the purpose of contraception as that term is properly understood in the light of papal teaching. (239)
Can and Should the Church Change it’s Teaching? • Yes: 9 • No: 3 • Abstain: 3
1968: Pope renews birth control ban BBC: Pope Paul VI has confirmed a ban on the use of contraceptives by Roman Catholics in spite of a Church commission's recommendation for change.
Bishops on Board Bishop Galeone Archbishop Chaput Bishop Carlson
