Can We Stop Making Love to Latex? (Part 1 of 2)
July 25, 2025 marked the 57th anniversary of the publication of Humanae Vitae, a papal encyclical written by Pope Paul VI. In Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI addresses the question concerning the moral permissibility of artificial birth control. The Church, in many ways, was at a crossroads. The Food and Drug Administration approved the first oral contraceptive (“The Pill”) in 1960. In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Griswold v. Connecticut, manufactured a new concept known as “the right to privacy” and concluded that married couples in the United States had the “right” to use contraception. Seven years later, in Eisenstadt v. Baird, after additional reading and searching of the Constitution, the Supreme Court concluded that unmarried couples had the “right” to use contraception. And of course, the sexual revolution was in full swing by the time Pope Paul VI began writing Humanae Vitae. Even fellow Christian denominations, such as the Anglican Church, had deemed the use of artificial contraception morally permissible; and that was way back in 1930. Leading up to the issuance of Humanae Vitae, there was even a large segment within the Catholic Church that thought it was only a matter of time before the Church approved the use of contraception, at least in the context of marriage.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen once wrote that “The Church never suits the particular mood of any age, because it was made for all ages. A Catholic knows that if the Church married the mood of any age in which it lived, it would be a widow in the next age. The mark of the true Church is that it will never get on well with the passing moods of the world.” In 1968, amidst a world pushing The Pill and the disruption of sexual norms, was the Church going to stand firm, or would She marry to spirit of the age?
Humanae Vitae established that the Catholic Church was once again at odds with the wisdom of the age, declaring that contraception was in fact intrinsically immoral. Indeed, Pope Paul VI wrote that it was immoral because it violated the unitive and procreative aspects of the marital act. Specifically, he wrote that “there is an unbreakable connection between the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning [of the conjugal act], and both are inherent in the conjugal act. This connection was established by God, and Man is not permitted to break it through his own volition.” In other words, it is not permissible to use artificial means in an attempt to avoid pregnancy, as it violates the natural consequence of the marital act, and is contrary to the natural law.
Pope Paul VI went on to predict the consequences that would result if our society embraced The Pill and other forms of contraception; he noted “how easy it will be [for many] to justify behavior leading to marital infidelity or to a gradual weakening in the discipline of morals.” He also wrote that “it is to be feared that husbands who become accustomed to contraceptive practices will lose respect for their wives.” Fast forward 57 years, and it is clear these predictions were spot on. One does not have to look for long before coming across “marital infidelity” and the “gradual weakening in the discipline of morals.” From pornography and Only Fans, to hookup culture and sites like Ashley Madison (a dating site for married people), the weakening of morals is clear. By conservative estimates, 40% of children are born out of wedlock in the United States. And upwards of 40% of marriages end in divorce. Tragically, children born out of wedlock or into broken homes are exponentially more likely to be impoverished or wind up in prison. Our society embraced The Pill en masse, and chaos reigned. Pope Paul VI was right, though perhaps he underestimated the tragedy that would ensue.
Liam
08/16/2025
Coming Soon: Part II, regarding the ridiculousness of different forms of contraception.
