Humanae Vitae (On Human Life) (8)

Father Richard M. Hogan

Chapter 8

The previous cycle (5th cycle) of the Theology of the Body series discussed the question of marriage as presented primarily in the fifth chapter of Ephesians. As we have seen, in that analysis of marriage John Paul applied the results of the studies of the human body-person undertaken in the first three cycles. In those first three cycles, as the reader may remember, the Holy Father discussed the human person in the Garden of Eden before sin (1st cycle), the human person after sin, i.e., historical man, (2nd cycle), and the human person after the Second Coming and the final resurrection (3rd cycle). The first three cycles took their beginnings from the words of Christ: his teaching that divorce was not allowed “in the beginning” (1stcycle), that looking lustfully constitutes “adultery in the heart” (2nd cycle), and that after the final resurrection, there is no giving and taking in marriage (3rd cycle). In each of these three conditions of the human person, the human body manifested, revealed and expressed the human person, but in different ways.  The results of these analyses illuminated the question of virginity and celibacy in the fourth cycle and the question of marriage in the fifth cycle.

The final cycle of the Theology of the Body series, nos. 114-129, the crowning conclusion of the entire set of reflections, re-reads the encyclical of Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, On Human Life, promulgated on July 25, 1968, in light of the results of the first three cycles of his Theology of the Body series. In this last cycle, the Pope also uses the results of his study of marriage undertaken in the fifth cycle. In the sixth cycle, John Paul addresses the “problem” of Humanae Vitae.

Humanae Vitae is the well-known “birth control” encyclical. In this world-famous document, Pope Paul VI responded to the advent of the contraceptive pill in the early 1960’s by holding that it (i.e., the pill) and all other contraceptive devices were immoral violations of the marital union of husband and wife. It is fair to say that no teaching of the Church since the sixteenth century has been as thoroughly rejected and even ignored as Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae. In fact, it was rejected before it was even read!

On the evening July 25th, 1968, the day the encyclical was released in Rome, but before the text of the Pope’s new document was even available in the United States (those were the days before the instant electronic movement of documents via the Internet), interested parties on the east coast of the U.S. were calling prominent scholars, theologians, priests, religious brothers and sisters, to solicit their names for a full-page ad opposing the teaching of Pope Paul VI to appear the next day in the New York Times. While some refused to lend their names to the ad (partly because they believed it was patently unfair and unjust to oppose something from the Pope which they had not even read!!!), sixty-seven other Catholic priests, scholars, and religious signed this ad BEFORE THEY HAD EVEN READ THE TEXT.  Humanae Vitaemight be said to have been “dead on arrival,” at least in the U.S. Other parts of the world reacted with as much or more opposition. At least two national conferences of bishops voiced unprecedented objections to the papal teaching. Although Pope Paul VI probably knew that his teaching would raise a bit of a storm, he would not have been human if he were not surprised at the violence of the opposition. It is interesting to note that from July 25, 1968 until his death on August 6, 1978, some ten years later, Pope Paul VI never issued another encyclical. Some suggest that the reason why he never wrote another encyclical afterHumanae Vitae was because of the opposition that encyclical occasioned.

John Paul alludes to the storm over Humanae Vitae when he writes that “the encyclical, in responding to some questions of today in the field of conjugal and family morality, at the same time, also raised other questions, as we know, of a bio-medical nature. But also (and above all) they are of a theological nature;they belong to that sphere of anthropology and theology that we have called ‘theology of the body.’ The reflections we made consist in facing the questions raised with regard to the Encyclical Humanae Vitae. The reaction that the encyclical aroused confirms the importance and the difficulty of these questions.” [1] John Paul goes on to say that the questions arising from Humanae Vitae “permeate the sum total of our reflections.”[2] In other words, John Paul determined very early in his pontificate, within the first year, to address the questions arising from Humanae Vitae. He decided to address these questions through his Theology of the Body. In addition, he specifically notes that these addresses, resulting from objections and questions presented to the Church in light of Humanae Vitae, constitute a development of divine Revelation because they examine the “problem” of Humanae Vitae from the point of view of the individual human person. “The analysis of the personalistic aspects of the Church’s doctrine, contained in Paul VI’s encyclical, emphasizes a determined appeal to measure man’s progress on the basis of the ‘person,’ that is of what is good for man as man—what corresponds to his essential dignity. The analysis of thepersonalistic aspects leads to the conviction that the encyclical presents as a fundamental problem the viewpoint of man’s authentic development; this development in fact is measured to the greatest extent on the basis of ethics and not only on technology.”[3]

In the teaching of Pope Paul VI found in Humanae Vitae, John Paul recognizes a profound truth about human persons. Grounding this truth in objective criteria (as Pope Paul VI did—i.e., on the basis of the way God created human beings) is essential, but John Paul II also wants to ground the teaching of the encyclical in what he calls the “true development of man” or “man’s authentic development.”[4] John Paul wants to show through his Theology of the Body that what the Church teaches in an objective way—as given by God at the dawn of Creation—is also the only path for the individual to follow if he or she wishes to develop himself or herself in a truly human way. Not only does John Paul accept that God created each of us in such a way as to exclude what Paul VI excludes in Humanae Vitae, but he demonstrates through the Theology of the Body addresses that the individual who acts contrary to the teaching in Humanae Vitae harms himself or herself and acts contrary to his or her true and authentic development. The sins listed in Humanae Vitaeare not just contrary to God and human nature, considered in a kind of abstract way, but they harm and hurt the individual who engages in them in his or her own body. John Paul is at pains to show that the sins listed in Humanae Vitae are not just sins because God “said so,” they are sins because they involve a manipulation and use of human persons. Since persons are to be loved, and not used, such sins damage, harm, and hurt the individual who engages in them and all those who engage in these with him or her. The sins listed in Humanae Vitae are not just sins because they violate the biological laws of the human body established by God when He created us, they are sins because the violations of human biology are attacks against the human body, i.e., attacks against human persons. As we quoted above, Humanae Vitae raised questions of “a bio-medical nature. But … [these] belong to that sphere of anthropology and theology that we have called ‘theology of the body’ ”[5] because the human body is not just a collection of biological functions, but the expression of the individual human person. When one touches the body, one touches the person!

Therefore, as the Pope writes, the reflections on Humanae Vitae, the sixth cycle of the Theology of the Body, “is not artificially added to the sum total but is organically and homogenously united with it.”[6] In re-reading Humanae Vitae in this sixth cycle, the Pope makes use of the conclusions from the first three cycles and from the fifth cycle. It is obvious then, that it is necessary to summarize the conclusions from the first three cycles and the fifth before we begin to understand what John Paul is teaching in this final cycle of the Theology of the Body.

The burden of the first and second cycles of the Theology of the Body is to establish that the human body is the expression of the human person. Further, since each human person is an image of God, not only are we called to express our own persons in and through our bodies, but, called by our very humanity, our creation in the image and likeness of God, we are called to act as God acts and express those acts in and through our human bodies. The human body then can be said to speak a language, the language of our persons, and even the language of God. In and through our flesh and blood, when we act as God acts, we, individually, reveal something of our own persons and something of God. Since God loves, we are called to love as He loves and express those loving acts in and through our bodies. The human body, in its masculinity and femininity, reveals to us that we are called to love, to make a self-donation of ourselves to others—this is the nuptial meaning of the body. Adam and Eve made such a self-donation to each other and lived a loving communion in the Garden of Eden before sin.

However, sin entered human history with the fall of Adam and Eve to the temptations of Satan. This fall caused a rupture within man so that the human body no longer always and infallibly responded to the dictates of the personal powers in man, i.e., to the mind and the will. There was a “constitutive break in the human person, almost a rupture of man’s original spiritual and somatic unity.”[7] It became very difficult for human persons to love as they should. This condition was revealed to Adam and Eve in and through their bodies by their changed experience of their own nakedness after sin. Still, they were not completely destroyed and they were still called to love as before and to express that love in and through their bodies. Now, however, they needed the help of a Redeemer and so God the Son became man, suffered, died, was buried, and rose from the dead accomplishing the redemption of the body. This redemption of the body meant that human persons now had the help of divine grace which made it possible, if not easy, to love as they should. But that love required an effort, even with the help of grace. That effort is the work of purity, of the power to see in every one, most especially in those of the opposite sex, the dignity and value of the person revealed in and through their masculinity or femininity.

The first and second cycles showed that there were two ways the human body “spoke” the language of personhood: in the Garden of Eden before sin; and in “historical” man after sin redeemed by Christ. There is a third way, the fulfillment of the redemption of the body. That third way will be realized after the Second Coming when our bodies will be resurrected and reunited with our souls. This third way that the body speaks the language of personhood was sketched in the third cycle of the Theology of the Body, the one that considered the state of human persons after the resurrection of their bodies.

The fifth cycle of the Theology of the Body concluded that the sacrament of Creation, i.e., making God visible in and through a human body, was taken up again in Christ Who made God visible perfectly because His body expressed and revealed God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Adam and Eve’s human bodies “spoke” the language of personhood, i.e., they revealed themselves in and through their bodies, but they also revealed God Himself. Further, they were “graced” in their love for one another. Theirs was a spousal love which revealed the mystery hidden in God from all eternity. The “spousal” character of Christ’s love is fundamentally grounded on the foundation of making the mystery hidden in God from all eternity visible in and through a human body and, secondarily, on the gracing which Christ accomplished as compared with the gracing of our first parents. Therefore, the sacrament of redemption is founded on the sacrament of creation. But all this can be accomplished only if the human body in speaking the language of personhood, speaks that language truthfully.

In the first address of the sixth cycle, no. 114, John Paul notes that he does not plan to comment on the entire text of Humanae Vitae, but only on the central passage which speaks of the two significances of the marital act: conjugal love and procreation. (In the Theology of the Body addresses, John Paul uses the term “significances” of the marital act. In the usual English translation of Humanae Vitae, the Latin for “significances” is translated as “meanings,” i.e., the two meanings of the marital act are the conjugal love meaning and the procreative meaning. Since we are following the Theology of the Body addresses, we will use the English translation of the Pope’s addresses and continue to refer to the two “significances” of the marital act.)  As is well known, Pope Paul VI taught that there was an inseparable connection between these two significances of the marital act and that they cannot be separated if the couple is not to sin. In other words, a married couple should never engage in the conjugal act without authentic love and without an openness to the procreation of children.

John Paul then remarks that in the physical union of husband and wife during the conjugal act, it is especially important “that the ‘language of the body’ be re-read in truth. This reading becomes the indispensable condition for acting in truth, that is, for behaving in accordance with the value and the moral norm.”[8] The couple, each in his or her own way, must re-read the language of each of their bodies in the midst of the conjugal act and realize the truth, the value, expressed. If done properly, the couple will subjectively internalize the teaching of the encyclical and not be in a state of tension regarding the two significances. The two will become one reality, under the rubric of their loving union. “The encyclical leads one to see the foundation for the norm [i.e., that the two significances of the marital act are inseparable] which determines the morality of the acts of the man and the woman in the marriage act, and more deeply still in the nature of the subjects of themselves who are performing the act.”[9] This line is the central thesis of the last cycle. The norm of the encyclical is revealed to the husband and wife in the midst of the conjugal union through their re-reading of the language of their bodies. The norm is known through the spouses’ own experience of the conjugal union during which they come to know the language that each of their bodies speak. The teaching of the encyclical is not “out there” in the sense that it is an objective norm imposed on the couple. Rather, it is found in the language of their own bodies.

John Paul sees Humanae Vitae pointing to this truth, i.e., that the inseparable connection of the “two significances” of the marital act can be known by the couple if they correctly read the language of their own bodies, because Paul VI writes that the two significances of the marital act are found in the “fundamental structure” of the marital act written into the very nature of man and woman. The two significances are found in the act itself, i.e., as John Paul interprets it, in the two subjects, the husband and wife, themselves, or more precisely, in their bodies. So, “the ‘fundamental structrue’ (that is, the nature) of the marriage act constitutes the necessary basis for an adequate reading and discovery of the two significances that must be carried over into the conscience and the decisions of the acting parties . . . .”[10] The couple must come to an awareness through the language of the body of the meaning of the marital act and realize themselves that the two significances are inseparable. This realization will then become part of their consciousnesses and will shape their consciences. As always, John Paul II shows that the ethical norms of the Gospel must become part of the subject, of the person, who then acts in accordance with those norms. Further, he is maintaining, as he always does, that the truth of the moral norms can be experienced and “read” in the lives of individuals if they act in accordance with the truth. In the case of norms pertaining to bodily acts (i.e., most of the moral norms), they are experienced and revealed in and through those very bodily acts IF the individual or individuals are “reading” the language of the body according to truth, i.e., they are reading it as it is given without any preconceived notions.

In the next address, no. 115, John Paul shows that the norm taught in Humanae Vitae is contained in the natural law and is part of the content of the Church’s Tradition. The norm of Humanae Vitae “is in accordance with the sum total of revealed doctrine contained in biblical sources.” [11] However, and more importantly for the purposes of John Paul’s commentary, the norm of Humanae Vitae can be found in the Theology of the Body, i.e., it can be read by the couple if they look to their own bodies in the midst of the conjugal act and read the language of their bodies in truth.

In the next address, no. 116, John Paul links Humanae Vitae with the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes. He argues that both documents are pastoral in the sense that they respond to practical questions raised by the men and women of the contemporary world. Further, both documents were inspired by a genuine concern for the authentic good of each and every person in the world. “Whoever believes that the Council and the Encyclical do not sufficiently take into account the difficulties present in concrete life does not understand the pastoral concern that was at the origin of those documents. Pastoral concern means the search for the true good of man, a promotion of the values engraved in his person by God.”[12] Further, it is impossible that the “promotion of the values engraved” in the human person by God cannot be lived. The same God who “engraved” those values created the universe in which human persons live. God cannot contradict Himself and therefore if these values are correctly read in the individual lives of every human person, they are able to be fulfilled.

Of course, the objection of modern society to the norm of Humanae Vitae is that this norm is not possible because the good of marriage, it is argued, requires the conjugal embrace, but the good of the couple, of society, of the world requires a certain control over population. The two inseparable significances of the marital act, as taught in Humanae Vitae, seem to be in conflict. Few would doubt the necessity of an authentic loving conjugal embrace in marriage, but many doubt the necessity of every one of these marital acts being “open to the transmission of life.” It is argued that truly responsible couples engage in the marital act frequently for the good of their marriage, but at the same time, limit the size of their families. Therefore, responsible parenthood REQUIRES the modern couple to separate the two significances of the marital act. In facing this argument, the Pope turns in the next five addresses, nos. 117-121, to the question of responsible parenthood.

In no. 117, John Paul summarizes the well-known teaching of the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, as well as the teaching of Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitaeconcluding that “the relative principle of conjugal morality is, therefore, fidelity to the divine plan manifested in the ‘intimate structure of the conjugal act’ and in the ‘inseparable connection of the two significances of the conjugal act’.”[13] This normative teaching must be one of the principles which form the consciences of married couples. Furthermore, responsible parenthood is not simply the case of a couple postponing a pregnancy, but rather it is the couple conforming themselves to the divine plan. For some couples, this could mean a large family and for others it could mean a smaller family. The task of each couple is to discern what is prudent in their particular situation. In this address, John Paul is summarizing the objective norms of the Church’s teaching. He continues this same tone in the next address, no. 118, when he teaches that even if a couple has sufficient prudential reasons to avoid a pregnancy, the means by which they postpone a pregnancy are important. Even if a couple is motivated by “acceptable reasons” to avoid a pregnancy, this does not allow the use of contraception because they should never change the “very structure of the conjugal act.”[14] But, John Paul insists, this norm has a pastoral character and therefore can be discovered in the pedagogy of the body. In other words, couples can discover this norm by re-reading the language of their bodies in the midst of the conjugal act.

The language of the body expressed in the conjugal union is a complete self-gift of each spouse to the other. The body of the husband expresses and reveals his person. The body of the wife expresses and reveals her person. In their wedding vows, they both chose to give themselves to each other in the union of marriage. This gift is expressed, renewed, and made concrete in the marital act. In other words, they speak their total gift of themselves to each other in the language of their bodies during the marital act. The marital act is not a true self-gift made by each of them to the other if they do not give themselves completely in their entire being, all the potentialities of their persons, body and soul. If in the midst of the gift, they should hold back, refuse to give, some aspect of their selves, then the language of their bodies which expresses a self-gift, is in fact a lie. As the Pope taught in The Apostolic Exhortation on the Family, Familiaris Consortio, “The innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality.”[15] The contraceptive marital act is not an act of love because the conjugal union is “deprived of its interior truth,”[16] because its interior truth—the truth of their bodies—includes the possibility of new life. In effect, the couple contracepting speaks a lie with the language of their bodies.

A gift is a disinterested present made by one person to another to benefit the recipient, not the one giving. For example, at Christmas time, we try to give gifts which will please and benefit the recipient. If, in giving, we are trying to benefit ourselves, e.g., a brother gives his sister a new CD player only because he wants to use it all the time, this is quickly recognized as a non-gift, as an act which benefits the supposed giver, and not the recipient. Such a “gift” is in effect not a gift because a gift is defined as something for the benefit of the recipient. The marital act is a gift of one spouse to the other for the sake of the spouse. Clearly, then, the act must not be done for the benefit of the one giving. (Of course, since both have this attitude and the act is a mutual giving, both usually benefit, but the motive of each must be for the benefit of the other.) Selfishness is excluded from the marital act. 

Obviously, given the “constitutive break within the human person,”[17] it is difficult in the sexual union to make a dis-interested gift to one’s spouse. Such an act requires a self-mastery as the Pope has explained in previous addresses in his Theology of the Body series. The problem with contraception is that instead of a self-mastery, e.g., a postponement of the marital act for the sake of responsible parenthood, the couple claims a control over their own bodies. They “manipulate and degrade”[18] themselves so that they may engage in the marital act without the possibility of new life. “The problem consists in maintaining an adequate relationship between what is defined as ‘domination . . . of the forces of nature’ (HV 2) and the ‘mastery of self’ (HV 21) which is indispensable for the human person. Modern man shows a tendency to transfer the methods of the former to those of the latter. ‘Man has made stupendous progress in the domination and rational organization of the forces of nature,’ we read in the Encyclical, ‘to the point that he is endeavoring to extend this control over every aspect of his own life—over his body, over his mind and emotions, over his social life, and even over the laws that regulate the transmission of life.’ This extension of the sphere of the means of ‘domination of the forces of nature’ menaces the human person for whom the method of ‘self-mastery’ is and remains specific. . .   . The resort to ‘artificial means’ destroys the constitutive dimension of the person . . . and makes him an object of manipulation.”[19] Technology is very, very good, but when applied to the human person, body and soul, it must be applied according to the structure of the person. One of the aspects of the structure of the human person, taught in the Theology of the Body, is that the human body speaks the language of personhood. It speaks this language through all of its functions and so none of these healthy functions should ever be altered, harmed or destroyed. To do so, is to attack the body as the expression of the person and to manipulate the person. Contraception alters and harms our fertility, a function of our bodies.

As Pope John Paul II remarks in no. 121, “The concept of morally correct regulation of fertility is nothing other than the rereading of the ‘language of the body’ in truth. . . . It is necessary to bear in mind that the ‘body speaks’ not merely with the whole external expression of masculinity and femininity, but also with the internal structures of the organism.”[20] One of the criticisms of Pope Paul VI’s teaching in Humanae Vitae was that it rested moral truths on human biology. The question was asked: “If we can dam up rivers, defy gravity by flying, launch men and machines so that they can journey to the moon, why cannot we alter our own biology? Why is human biology off limits, but gravity is not? John Paul answers this question precisely when he teaches that the body is more than its biological parts. Through these apparently understandable functions, the mystery of the human person and even the mystery of God is expressed. One way of thinking about this is the old line of high school biology teachers that the human body is worth less than $10 in terms of the minerals and valuables it has within it. Would any one actually take $10 for a child’s life, or a spouse’s life? Of course not. We are more than the sum of our biological parts. In and through the body, it is the mystery of personhood which is expressed and we dare not reduce a human person down to his or her “biology.” But if couples are to exercise responsible parenthood and at the same time speak the language of self-gift in and through their bodies, it is obviously necessary that the develop a self-mastery or what is sometimes called, continence.

There is no question that this is a daunting task assigned to married couples. But they have help. The power of the Holy Spirit is poured out into their hearts through the sacraments, especially those of the Holy Eucharist and the of Reconciliation. “These are the means—infallible and indispensable—for forming the Christian spirituality of married life and family life. With these, that essential and  spiritual creative ‘power’ of love reaches human hearts and, at the same time, human bodies in their subjective masculinity and femininity.”[21] In the next address, continuing the same subject, the Pope writes that “the powers of concupiscience try to detach the ‘language of the body’ from the truth, that is, they try to falsify it, the power of love instead strengthens it ever anew in that truth, so that the mystery of the redemption of the body can bear fruit in it.”[22] In this passage, John Paul asserts that the power of love safeguards the language of the body in the marital embrace. It is important to remember that the language of the body in the marital embrace, as he has previously mentions, includes the possibility of procreation. Therefore, love has the role of “safeguarding the inseparable connection between the ‘two meanings’ of the conjugal act.”[23] (Here, the English translation of the Pope’s address uses the phrase, “two meanings.” Previously, as we have noted, the term was “two significances.” Clearly, there were different English translators of these addresses.)

Love unites the two “meanings” into one reality because love is the self-gift of the spouses, their whole beings, to each other. They could not love, they could not give themselves completely to each other and reciprocally accept the gift of the other without at the same time giving and accepting that part of themselves which includes the possibility of life. Another way of looking at the same problem is to realize that love is THE activity of God, spectacularly manifested in the life of Christ, particularly in His passion, death, and resurrection. His love was a union of wills (“Not my will, but yours be done), founded on the knowledge that the dignity and value implanted in each and every human being required for its fulfillment that there be at least a possibility of heaven for each and every individual. Love in Christ then is a union of wills based on the recognition of the value of dignity of the one loved. Christ’s love was a self-gift (what more could have given that what He gave on the cross?). Christ’s love is also permanent and life-giving. (He remained on the cross to the bitter end and He retains the wounds of His passion in His humanity even now in heaven—and will for all eternity be marked by those wounds. From His wounded side flowed blood and water, the source of the sacramental life of the Church.) Love then has five characteristics: 1. a union of wills created through a choice; 2. this choice is founded on the dignity of the person loving and one or ones loved; 3. the choice is a self-gift which is 4. permanent and 5. life-giving. Authentic love unites the inseparable connection of the two “meanings” of the marital act and unites them in one reality. There really are not two things, but one: love. But true love cannot be given or received without self-mastery, without overcoming the falsification of love caused by concupiscence. For this reason, couples desperately require the love “poured out to them” by the Holy Spirit through the sacraments, especially those of the Holy Eucharist and Reconciliation.

It is vital to remember that love is founded on the recognition of the dignity and value of oneself and of the ONE LOVED. This recognition of the other’s dignity and value is essential to love—to giving oneself. The recognition of the dignity of the other is the REASON why one would choose to make such a stupendous donation: the donation of oneself. Self-mastery or continence is required for the recognition of the dignity of the other because “concupiscence of the flesh itself, in so far as it seeks above all carnal and sensual satisfaction makes man in a certain sense blind and insensitive to the most profound values.”[24] If all a husband considers when he sees his wife is “what can she do for me,” he is looking at her solely as one that can satisfy his desires. He does not see her as a person created for her own sake. He does not see the awesome and fearful dignity and value with which God created her. Rather, he sees her as a thing, something to be used, to satisfy his needs or desires. This is a reduction of the incredible dignity of a human person to an object. Such a reduction prevents love because love depends on the recognition of the dignity and value both of the one loved and the one giving himself or herself in love. To “ ‘defer to one another out of reverence for Christ’ (Eph. 5:21) seems to open that interior space in which both become ever more sensitive to the most profound and most mature values that are connected with the spousal significance of the body and with the true freedom of the gift. If conjugal chastity (and chastity in general) is manifested at first as the capacity to resist the concupiscence of the flesh, it later gradually reveals itself as asingular capacity to perceive, love, and practice those meanings of the ‘language of the body’ which remain altogether unknown to concupiscence itself and which progressively enrich the marital dialogue of the couple, purifying it, deepening it, and at the same time simplifying it.”[25]

Concupiscence is the inordinate desire for sexual gratification. In a marriage, if one or both partners are acting out of concupiscence, they reduce the significance of the spouse to only one value: the value of his or her ability to satisfy a sexual desire. There is a reduction of the other person to one aspect. In this reduction, the other person is not seen as he or she is, but only according to one aspect. As concupiscence is indulged, it grows and the blindness to the full reality of the other person becomes more and more intense. Finally, the other is seen solely as the one who satisfies the sexual desire. Eventually, others will be found who will do this in a more exciting way or in a different and new way. The blindness to the full truth of the other person makes the love-union of marriage senseless and impossible. Even if the marriage does not end in divorce, there remains little of the original communion of persons which supposedly the spouses commenced when they said their vows. Since we are created as images of God to love as He loves, a loveless marriage renders life meaningless and empty because “life is senseless” without love.[26]

However, self-mastery, achieved through continence, allows one to look beyond the spouse as merely one who satisfies a sexual longing. The sexual longing desires to possess the other person in order to satisfy itself. In mastering this longing, one does not give up any hope of receiving the other (although it may seem like that on occasion and especially at first), but rather the sexual longing is mastered and subordinated so that one will be able to receive the other as a true gift of the other in all the mystery and awe of his or her personhood. When this occurs in a marriage, the spouses are in awe of the wonder and absolute astonishing gift they have received: precisely the gift of another human person in his or her entire mystery as a person who reflects the infinity of God. The joy of receiving this gift so transcends any merely carnal satisfaction that no one would ever want to return to merely seeking a sexual satisfaction from the other. Further, the awe and wonder at the gift of the spouse (How can I be so incredibly fortunate as to be the recipient of the self-gift of this other marvelous, wondrous person?) extends to an awe and wonder at the creative power of God who created the spouse and enabled him or her to give himself or herself to me. The awe and wonder at the gift of the spouse and at God quickly turns to gratitude and gratitude always increases love. In such couples, the love of each other grows almost daily and the love of God also increases. 

The Pope teaches that the apparent contradiction in Humanae Vitae between the two meanings of the marital act disappears with love. “There would be a ‘contradiction’ (according to those who offer this objection) between the meanings of the conjugal act, the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning (cf. HV 12), so that if it were not licit to separate them, the couple would be deprived of the right to conjugal union when they could not responsibly be permitted to procreate.”[27] There is no contradiction because in accepting the spouse for who he or she is in all the mystery of his or her creation, including his or her fertility, the other spouse also refuses to do harm to the spouse or to the marriage. If it is not prudent to bring a child into the world, and each spouse truly loves the other, accepts the other as he or she actually is, why would either one INSIST on the privileges of marriage---this would not be an act of love, but simply the surrender to sexual longing. Such a surrender is excluded by the love each has for the other. The sexual longing is subordinated to the love and is mastered through continence FOR THE SAKE OF THE MUCH GREATER GIFT. As the Pope writes, “It is indeed a matter of not doing harm to the communion of the couple in the case where for just reasons they should abstain from the conjugal act.”[28]

Of course, this self-giving love, founded on self-mastery, is not usually easy. But couples grow in their ability to love as they should as they pass through life. They also help one another and above all, they must make use of the powers of the Holy Spirit, dispensed through the sacraments. Neither Pope Paul VI or Pope John Paul II is teaching that this is “easy” for couples, especially at first. They are, however, teaching that it is the only path for true happiness because the only “way” for man is love (a paraphrase of some language John Paul II used in his first encyclical, Redeemer of Man, Redemptor Hominis.) As John Paul notes in the next address, no. 125, “It is often thought that continence causes inner tensions from which man must free himself. In the light of the analyses we have done, continence, understood integrally, is rather the only way to free man from such tensions.”[29]

A man and a woman in coming to know each other, when the beginnings of a relationship are occurring, experience both an emotional excitement and what might be called sensual reactions. The sensual reactions might be called the anticipation of the sexual pleasure of the conjugal act. The emotional response, while conditioned by the masculinity or femininity of the other, is often expressed by “manifestations of affection.”[30] Continence does not suppress these reactions so much as direct them according to the true value of the other person. “Continence is not only . . . the ability to ‘abstain,’  that is, mastery over the multiple reactions, . . . but there is also another role . . . of self-mastery: it is the ability to direct the respective reactions, both as to their content and their character.”[31] 

Following this line of thought, John Paul makes explicit in the next address, no. 126, what has already been implied. A particular couple’s application of their knowledge of human fertility either to achieve or to postpone a pregnancy is not simply the application of biological knowledge. The very use of such information pre-supposes self-mastery, otherwise they could not refrain when they should (if it is not prudent to bring another child into the world), nor could they truly give themselves in a loving way when they use the privileges of marriage. As he puts it, “The knowledge itself of the ‘rhythms of fertility’—even though indispensable—still does not create that interior freedom of the gift, which is by its nature explicitly spiritual and depends on man’s interior maturity.” This freedom presupposes such a capacity to direct the sensual and emotive reactions as to make possible the giving of self to the other ‘I’ on the grounds of the mature self-possession of one’s own ‘I’ in its corporeal and emotive subjectivity.” [32] In other words, if I have self-mastery, I possess myself (in the proper sense) and I can make a gift of myself. Without such self-mastery, there can be no authentic love.

It is also true that couples grow in continence, in self-mastery, as they grow into their marriage. Therefore, the Church sees in the practice of Natural Family Planning what might be called a school of self-mastery, continence, and love. While Natural Family Planning is best defined as the knowledge of a couple’s fertility, by applying this knowledge and refraining from the marital embrace at the appropriate times (either because the couple wishes to achieve a pregnancy or because they wish to postpone one), they develop and grow in self-mastery and continence. This, in turn, develops in them an authentic love for each other and for God.

Almost every priest in the U.S. has had the experience of witnessing the marriage of a young couple who has agreed to take a course in NFP. In taking this course, the couple may have wanted to use a “natural” method rather than a chemical method of spacing their children and they also may have begun their marriage with a relatively ungenerous attitude toward future children. The couple faithfully practices NFP, abstaining from the marital embrace at the times the believe it imprudent to conceive a child. Then, experiencing some difficulty in achieving a pregnancy, they abstain a bit, in order to maximize the chance of conceiving a child. The first child is born and both husband wife, now mother and father, see the wondrous, awesome gift, God has given to them in the child. They see their own humanity reproduced. They come to know each other in a different way, as mother and father, than before and their appreciation and gratitude to each other grows immensely. They come to see the mystery that each is more and more and they are both awed at the gift they both have received form each other. They also see in the child a reflection of the divine. They realize that they alone are not solely responsible for the creation of this child, but that God has had a part in it. Their gratitude at the awesome gift of their child grows into a greater and greater love for God. Love of the other spouse also grows in each. Love of each of them for God grows. Love is of itself generous—it wishes to share itself with others. As the spouses grow in their love for each other, their child, and God, they grow more and more generous.

Some years later, they visit the parish where the priest who married them is now serving. They now have (let’s say, only by way of example), four children. The priest remembers them and also remembers that while they agreed to use NFP, they said that they were going to limit the size of their family to two children. He sees them now with four and asks why they changed their minds? They usually cannot explain what happened. But what happened, was that their love for each other, for their children, and for God grew and grew and their generosity and appreciation of life grew. NFP had been a school of love for that family. For the Church, as the Pope hints, NFP is not so much a means of spacing children (although it certainly is that), it is primarily a school of love. (Of course, this example is not intended to diminish or to denigrate in any way the challenges of family life today. But, without love, those challenges can seem impossible. With love they are manageable.) Obviously, as the Pope has said repeatedly, NFP can become a school of love only if it is accompanied with true prayer and a frequent reception of the sacraments.

In the next address, no. 127, John Paul emphasizes that spouses must use the gifts of the Holy Spirit to help them develop the proper attitude of love towards one another. In speaking about the sacraments and prayer, the Pope previously accented sanctifying grace, the life of God we receive through the sacraments. In this address, and the next one, no. 128, he mentions the more transcendent work of the Holy Spirit through the seven gifts. Couples, the Pope, teaches need to develop a reverential fear before one another. This “fear of the Lord” does not mean to cower in terror, but rather an awe at the work of God in creating the other person, the spouse, and even in giving life to the children of the spouses. Each of us reflects God in our own unique ways. Each of us is an icon of God. In recognizing the aspect of the divine mystery present in each of us, spouses need to see in one another the spark of the divine. Respect for each other “is manifested as a salvific fear: fear of violating or degrading what bears in itself the sign of the divine mystery of creation and redemption.”[33] This amounts, as the gift matures, to a “veneration for the essential values of the conjugal union . . . [a] veneration for the interior truth of the mutual ‘language of the body’.”[34] The gift of the Holy Spirit called the fear of the Lord helps each and every one of us to hold in awe and reverence everything that is sacred and holy. Every single human person is, in a sense, sacred and holy because every single one of us is created in the image and likeness of God and is redeemed by Christ. Since spouses “touch” the mystery of each other in an extraordinarily profound way, more profoundly than in any other human relationship, their awe and wonder, their “salvific fear” of each other must be in place. The gift of “salvific fear” in the presence of the sacred can help spouses always to hold each other in great awe and wonder and always remind them of the gift that each of them is to the other.

Continuing the same theme in the next address, no. 128, John Paul writes: “The attitude of respect for the work of God, which the Spirit stirs up in the couple, has an enormous significance” because it develops in the couple a “capacity for deep satisfaction, admiration, disinterested attention to the ‘visible’ and at the same time the ‘invisible’ beauty of femininity and masculinity, and finally a deep appreciation for the disinterested gift of the ‘other’.”[35] 

The argument of Pope John Paul II for the teaching of Humanae Vitae in the sixth cycle of the Theology of the Body can be summarized as follows. Authentic love is not possible without self-mastery which only is attained with an effort of the will aided by the virtue of continence given through God’s grace. Therefore, the sacraments are essential to authentic love. In addition, the gifts of the Holy Spirit help the couple develop that awe and wonder at each other which helps them to “reverence each other” (Ephesians 5:21) as they would Christ. Authentic love always includes the possibility of life because without such a possibility, there is no love.

In beginning the discussion of the sixth cycle of the Theology of the Body, we quoted from the last address, no. 129 and so it will not be necessary to summarize it again at this point.

There is no question that the entire corpus of Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body was intended as a exposition of the teaching of Humanae Vitae.  However, it is much more than that. Taking Christ’s words as the departure point, the first three cycles of the Theology of the Body represent first of all a bit of a theological experiment using the data of the earliest human experiences recorded in Genesis as a mine of material for a phenomenological examination of the human person. But since these recorded experiences are contained in the inspired Word of God, the language used to record the experiences also contains Revelation about ourselves and God. The phenomenological examination of human experiences leads to questions about the meaning of human life and also to some answers, but the Revelation of the Scriptures also answers such questions. In fact, Revelation gives definitive answers and phenomenology, as any philosophy, gives some preliminary and incomplete answers. But the combination of phenomenology and Revelation yields this double flow of data about the human person and a new way of formulating the truths contained in Revelation. Therefore, the first three cycles of the Theology of the Body results in a genuine development in our understanding of the mystery of human personhood as revealed to us by God most definitively in Christ. The fifth cycle reformulates the teaching of St. Paul in Ephesians 5 on marriage and its sacramentality in light of the previous analyses in the first three cycles. This reformulation yields new insights and new developments. The fourth cycle on celibacy and virginity might seem out of place at first, but is vitally necessary, as a prelude to the discussion of the sacramentality of marriage, because celibacy and virginity are for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven and that is the point of the sacrament of marriage, i.e., spouses in marriage are to help each other come to the glory of heaven. In this cycle, as in the fifth, there are some new developments. Each cycle in its own way prepares for the crowning conclusion found in the sixth cycle, but each cycle also has new insights and new ways of teaching what the Gospel has always taught. Needless to say, the re-reading of Humanae Vitae in the sixth cycle is not just a re-reading, but a genuine and profound deepening, or grounding, of the teaching of that encyclical in the roots of the Theology of the Body. We must all always and everywhere give thanks to God for the teaching of Pope John Paul II in the Theology of the Body series, but also in everything else he has taught the world in his twenty-five years plus as the Vicar of Christ! Ad multos annos!

[1] See no. 129, Theology of the Body, November 28, 1984: “Pope Concludes Series of Catechesis on the Redemption of the Body and the Sacramentality of Marriage,” L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 49. [1] 

[2] See no. 129, Theology of the Body, November 28, 1984: “Pope Concludes Series of Catechesis on the Redemption of the Body and the Sacramentality of Marriage,” L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 49. 

[3] See no. 129, Theology of the Body, November 28, 1984: “Pope Concludes Series of Catechesis on the Redemption of the Body and the Sacramentality of Marriage,” L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 49. 

[4] See no. 129, Theology of the Body, November 28, 1984: “Pope Concludes Series of Catechesis on the Redemption of the Body and the Sacramentality of Marriage,” L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 49. 

[5] See no. 129, Theology of the Body, November 28, 1984: “Pope Concludes Series of Catechesis on the Redemption of the Body and the Sacramentality of Marriage,” L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 49. 

[6] See no. 129, Theology of the Body, November 28, 1984: “Pope Concludes Series of Catechesis on the Redemption of the Body and the Sacramentality of Marriage,” L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 49. 

[7] See no. 28, Theology of the Body, May 28, 1980: “A Fundamenal Disquiet In All Human Existence,” L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 13, no. 22. 

[8] See no. 114, Theology of the Body, July 11, 1984: “Morality of the Marriage Act Determined by Nature of the Act and of the Subjects,”L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 29.

[9] See no. 114, Theology of the Body, July 11, 1984: “Morality of the Marriage Act Determined by Nature of the Act and of the Subjects,”L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 29.

[10] See no. 114, Theology of the Body, July 11, 1984: “Morality of the Marriage Act Determined by Nature of the Act and of the Subjects,”L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 29. 

[11]See no. 115, Theology of the Body, July 18, 1984: “The Norm of ‘Humanae Vitae’ Arises From the Natural Law and Revealed Moral Order,” L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 30. 

[12]See no. 116, Theology of the Body, July 25, 1984: “Importance of Harmonizing Human Love With Respect For Life,” L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 31.

[13] See no. 117, Theology of the Body, August 1, 1984: “Responsible Parenthood,” L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 32. 

[14] See no. 118, Theology of the Body, August 8, 1984: “Faithfulness to the Divine Plan in the Transmission of Life,” L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 33.

[15] The Apostolic Exhortation on the Family, Familiaris Consortio, November 22, 1981, no. 32.

[16] See no. 119, Theology of the Body, August 22, 1984: “Pope Reaffirms Church’s Position on Transmission of Life,” L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 35.

[17] See no. 28, Theology of the Body, May 28, 1980: “A Fundamenal Disquiet In All Human Existence,” L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 13, no. 22.

[18] The Apostolic Exhortation on the Family, Familiaris Consortio, November 22, 1981, no. 32.

[19] See no. 119, Theology of the Body, August 22, 1984: “Pope Reaffirms Church’s Position on Transmission of Life,” L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 35.

[20] See no. 121, Theology of the Body, September 5, 1984: “Responsible Parenthood Linked to Moral Maturity,” L’Osservatore Romano(English Edition), vol. 17, no. 37.

[21] See no. 122, Theology of the Body, October 3, 1984: “Prayer, Penance and the Eucharist Are the Principal Sources of Spirituality for Married Couples,” L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 41. 

[22] See no. 123, Theology of the Body, October 10, 1984: “The Power of Love Is Given to Man and Woman As A Share in God’s Love,”L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 42.

[23] See no. 123, Theology of the Body, October 10, 1984: “The Power of Love Is Given to Man and Woman As A Share in God’s Love,”L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 42.

[24] See no. 124, Theology of the Body, October 24, 1984: “Continence Protects the Dignity of the Conjugal Act,” L’Osservatore Romano(English Edition), vol. 17, no. 44.

[25] See no. 124, Theology of the Body, October 24, 1984: “Continence Protects the Dignity of the Conjugal Act,” L’Osservatore Romano(English Edition), vol. 17, no. 44.

[26] Redeemer of Man, Redemptor Hominis, March 4, 1979, no. 10. The full quotation is: “Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless.”

[27] See no. 124, Theology of the Body, October 24, 1984: “Continence Protects the Dignity of the Conjugal Act,” L’Osservatore Romano(English Edition), vol. 17, no. 44.

[28] See no. 124, Theology of the Body, October 24, 1984: “Continence Protects the Dignity of the Conjugal Act,” L’Osservatore Romano(English Edition), vol. 17, no. 44.

[29] See no. 125, Theology of the Body, October 31, 1984: “Continence Frees One From Inner Tension,” L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 45. \

[30] See no. 125, Theology of the Body, October 31, 1984: “Continence Frees One From Inner Tension,” L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 45.

[31] See no. 125, Theology of the Body, October 31, 1984: “Continence Frees One From Inner Tension,” L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 45. The reference here to excitement and sensual reactions hearkens back to what the Pope wrote in his Love and Responsibility in the early sixties about the sensual and sensible reactions of the masculine to the feminine and vice-versa. See Karol Wojtyla, Love and Responsibility, translated by H. T. Willetts, (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1981). There is also a new edition of this work by Ignatius Press, San Francisco. See also Richard M. Hogan and John M, LeVoir, Covenant of Love, (New York: Doubleday, 1985), pp. 16-18. There is also a second edition of this book from Ignatius Press, (San Francisco, 1992). (The page references may vary in the second editions of both these works from those given here. The index can be used to find the proper reference.)

[32] See no. 126, Theology of the Body, November 7, 1984: “Continence Deepens Personal Communion,”  L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 46.

[33] See no. 127, Theology of the Body, November 7, 1984: “Christian Spirituality of Marriage Possible Only By Living According to the Spirit,”  L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 47. 

[34] See no. 127, Theology of the Body, November 7, 1984: “Christian Spirituality of Marriage Possible Only By Living According to the Spirit,”  L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 47. 

[35] See no. 128, Theology of the Body, November 21, 1984: “Respect For the Work of God,”  L’Osservatore Romano (English Edition), vol. 17, no. 48. 

Posted April 12, 2004 ---- Fr. Richard Hogan