By CHRISTOPHER MANION
This week we celebrate the fifty-fourth anniversary of Humanae Vitae, the brave and beautiful encyclical of Blessed Paul VI promulgated on July 25, 1968.
Brave? Absolutely. This eloquent articulation of the teaching of the Church and the fundamentals of the Natural Law constituted a direct challenge to what Pope Benedict called “the spirit of the age.” And the reaction of that decadent and resentful age demonstrates just how brave Humanae Vitae was — Francis Cardinal Stafford, a young Baltimore priest in 1968, describes the pain suffered by the defenders of the faith that year as “Gethsemane.”
And beautiful? How could it not be? The gentle, clear, but firm unfolding of the mystery of sacramental marriage and its role in God’s plan for the family, the world, and salvation is central to the most beautiful story ever told. But the Dictators of Relativism are anything but relativists: They are devoted and hardened apostles of ugliness, sin, and lies. Even before the encyclical was published, they plotted to destroy both the teaching and the Church that taught it.
And 54 years later they’re still trying. After all, an attack on one sacrament is an attack on all of them, as well as an attack on Christ who bestowed them on a sinful humanity to lead us to eternal life.
We learned — before 1968 — that a sacrament is “an outward sign, instituted by Christ, to give grace.” But the purveyors of the sordid culture of death, lifeless sex, and the grotesque abominations that call out to Heaven for justice — they had “outward signs” of their own. “Universal abortion on demand, free and without apology!” “Sex on tap, free beer!” “Love the one you’re with!” “Save the world, not that baby!” “I’ll decide my gender, thank you!”
Gethsemane? Cardinal Stafford was not alone. Ten years ago, then-USCCB President Timothy Cardinal Dolan described the “tsunami of dissent” that followed the “flashpoint” of Humanae Vitae. Alas, the tsunami engulfed America’s bishops (and Cardinal Dolan included himself): “We’d better never talk about that, because it’s just too hot to handle” was their reaction, he told the Wall Street Journal (March 31, 2012).
That silence has prevailed since the 1960s. Did a generation of “St. John Paul II bishops” recover their voice? Alas, no, the cardinal continued. The public revelation of the abuse and cover-up scandals in 2002 “intensified our laryngitis over speaking of chastity and sexual morality, because we thought, ‘I’ll blush if I do . . . How will I have any credibility in speaking on that?’”
The good, the true, and the beautiful are simple, limpid, and lovable. The evil, the false, and the ugly debauch reality in a thousand ways. There is only one good, but there are countless ways to deny, defy, and defile it — all designed as preambles to its destruction.
The family was designed by God to reflect the mystery, unity, diversity, and perfection of the Trinity. Those who hate the designer will hate the design — including the design written on their own hearts.
Early on in the “sexual revolution” we were told — we were assured! — that the sexually deviant “only wanted to be free” to “do their thing.” They just wanted to be left alone. Theirs was the true “gospel of love.”
Not anymore.
While families raise children fostering love and a desire for Heaven, the family’s enemies — and their number is legion — spawn death and yearn for the power to destroy anything and everything good. Man, not God, determines our “gender”; Caesar, not mom and dad, decides what is true and what is not. The unproductive old must not resist the gift of an early government-funded death. After all, Gaia, “Mother Earth,” is the highest good, and children — especially a lot of them — are the greatest evil, since they will grow up and burn her down in the secular apocalypse of Global Warming.
The “New Compassion”
Replaces Timeless Teaching
“Bleeding hearts…are so concerned for criminals and terrorists that today the good citizens are considered off the reservation, as the new compassion exalts the guilty and condemns the innocent” — Bishop Fulton J. Sheen (Guide To Contentment, p. 28).
So the bishops haven’t taught Humanae Vitae.
What have they been doing instead?
Thomas Sowell points out that, 70 years ago, the black family was as intact as white families. Only with the introduction of massive “social welfare” programs under Lyndon Johnson, did the black family begin to fall apart.
Unfortunately, the bishops embraced Johnson’s agenda. The cause-and-effect is now well-documented: Already in the 1960s, America’s bishops decided they would not oppose federal “family planning” funding in welfare programs both foreign and domestic.
The fix was already in: the billions being spread around by the “Great Society” programs and their spawn were simply irresistible. Ever since, the bishops have been comfortably ensconced in the public trough.
And here, elementary logic kicks in. Bishops realized that to preach Humanae Vitae in defense of the family on one hand, while opposing it in their public policy agenda on the other, would have presented an existentially untenable contradiction.
So they didn’t preach it.
On December 26, the Feast of the Holy Family, Pope Francis made a vital observation:
“Speaking of families, I have a concern, a real concern, at least here in Italy: the demographic winter. It seems that many couples have lost the inspiration to have children and many couples prefer not to have children or to have only one child. Think about this. It is a tragedy.”
Since the 1960s, America’s population has grown while our birthrate and fertility rates have plummeted.
Our bishops have not responded not by defending life, marriage, and lots of children.
Instead, they have advocated a “Next America” that will feature a predominantly newly arrived, Hispanic Catholic population.
So they routinely welcome millions of illegal aliens every year who are replacing the American children, including the American Catholic children, who have never been born.
For those who criticize their political agenda, the bishops have one word:
“Racist!”
With their annual multimillion-dollar federal grants, our bishops’ welfare agencies care for newcomers who come from some of the most corrupt countries and cultures in the world. Among them are thousands of convicted criminals, child traffickers, terrorists, and drug kingpins.
Our bishops don’t bother teaching these folks basic American principles — not to lie and steal, not to break the law — you know, stuff like that.
Instead, they tell them that we Americans are all guilty of “America’s Second Original Sin of Racism,” so they don’t have to follow our immigration, welfare, and Social Security laws.
They even advocate sanctuary for the countless criminals in their ranks.
Well, at least they teach them about Jesus, right?
Sorry, those welfare NGOs are secular. Federal law strictly prohibits using that grant money for any religious purpose.
To invoke the words of Bishop Sheen, this is our bishops’ version of the “new compassion.”
The Task Falls To The Laity
These days, most of our bishops have focused on left-wing political advocacy; with regard to Humanae Vitae, only a precious few have recovered from the plague of “laryngitis.” Who will respond to the challenge to revive and teach and celebrate the truths of marriage, chastity, and sexual morality?
In this generation, that task has fallen to the laity. We must raise good children and teach them, and pray that the next generation of bishops — our children’s generation — will pick up and champion the fallen standard of the gift of Pope St. Paul VI to the Church and to the world.
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