A footnote in Amoris Laetitia

 The Amoris Laetitia Family year, which began on 19th March 2021, has prompted me to dip into Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation and read those sections that have not drawn my attention in the past.

It is footnote 86 that has caught my eye:

cf Paul VI, Encyclical Letter Humanae Vitae (25 July 1968), 11-12: AAS 60 (1968), 488-489.

 Pope Francis had already spoken positively of Pope Paul VI's teaching in Humanae Vitae during his press conference on his return to Rome from a visit to Sri Lanka and the Phillipines - he there spoke of Pope Paul as being a "prophet" in the light of his foreseeing the consequences of a movement to control birth rates. I link here to the Italian version of the press conference as the English translation appears somewhat imprecise in its account of Pope Francis' reprimand of a mother expecting an eighth child, which he cites in an unfortunate way that illustrates how responsible parenthood can equally be lived by parents who accept having many children and by parents who for good reason choose to have fewer children.

What I find interesting in the passage of Amoris Laetitia that I quote below, and which includes the footnote and  reference to Humanae Vitae, is the association it establishes between the love of the married couple for each other and the new child as a fruit, not only of the sexual act, but also of that wider love (my emphasis added to the text to bring this out). What the teaching of Humanae Vitae defends is not only the inseparability of the unitive and procreative dimensions of the sexual act but also the inseparability of the child as being born of a love between the couple and their proper physical act that is open to life.

80. Marriage is firstly an “intimate partnership of life and love” which is a good for the spouses themselves, while sexuality is “ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman”. It follows that “spouses to whom God has not granted children can have a conjugal life full of meaning, in both human and Christian terms”. Nonetheless, the conjugal union is ordered to procreation “by its very nature”. The child who is born “does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfilment”. He or she does not appear at the end of a process, but is present from the beginning of love as an essential feature, one that cannot be denied without disfiguring that love itself. From the outset, love refuses every impulse to close in on itself; it is open to a fruitfulness that draws it beyond itself. Hence no genital act of husband and wife can refuse this meaning, even when for various reasons it may not always in fact beget a new life. 

81. A child deserves to be born of that love, and not by any other means, for “he or she is not something owed to one, but is a gift”, which is “the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of the parents”. This is the case because, “according to the order of creation, conjugal love between a man and a woman, and the transmission of life are ordered to each other (cf. Gen 1:27-28). Thus the Creator made man and woman share in the work of his creation and, at the same time, made them instruments of his love, entrusting to them the responsibility for the future of mankind, through the transmission of human life”.

82. The Synod Fathers stated that “the growth of a mentality that would reduce the generation of human life to one variable of an individual’s or a couple’s plans is clearly evident”. The Church’s teaching is meant to “help couples to experience in a complete, harmonious and conscious way their communion as husband and wife, together with their responsibility for procreating life. We need to return to the message of the Encyclical Humanae Vitae of Blessed Pope Paul VI, which highlights the need to respect the dignity of the person in morally assessing methods of regulating birth… The choice of adoption or foster parenting can also express that fruitfulness which is a characteristic of married life”. With special gratitude the Church “supports families who accept, raise and surround with affection children with various disabilities”.

Thought provoking is the suggestion of nn.80-81 that a "disfiguring of love itself" occurs when the origin of new life in the love of the couple, from the very beginning of that love, is not respected. One can read this in terms of the motivations and intentions of those involved, but this is not perhaps the true way to read it - many couples seeking to conceive children using artificial clinical methods will do so with the best of intentions. It is more about the objective character of the love that is involved, and that is about more than just the intentions - it is about the nature of actions themselves as well, and the best of intentions (which we should always respect in others) can still be associated with a less-than-perfect objective love. 

What the outcomes of a widespread availability of contraceptive methods, and of artificial clinical methods of conception, in developed societies will be is something that we have yet fully to see.

Humanae Vitae is here to stay

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae.

There is a view that the teaching of the encyclical on the moral illicitness of contraception is widely disregarded by the ordinary Catholic faithful. I am not sure that such a generalised view is really true to the reality seen as an ecclesial reality, rather than as a sociological reality. I can think of several families I know who are obedient to its teaching; and I ponder that the real witness to the integrity of the teaching of Humanae Vitae lies in the witness of families like these rather than the percentages produced by surveys or opinion polls. If there are areas in which the Church's life appears to be in decline, then there are always the ordinary places, like these families, where it is truly alive.

Since 1968, the universal teaching office of the Church has, amidst a severe contestation, held to the teaching of Humanae Vitae without change. Combine this with the witness of families referred to in the previous paragraph, and we can say with some confidence that Humanae Vitae is here to stay.

Penny Morduant is tilting at windmills if she really thinks that the Holy See will change on this.

The following passages from Humanae Vitae use the translation given in Fr George Woodall's 2008 "Humane Vitae: forty years on".

Upright people can also be persuaded more fully of the truth of the doctrine which the Church proposes in this matter, if they turn their minds to those things which will come about form the means adopted and the grounds put forward for restricting artificially the increase of births. In the first place they themselves may recognise what a wide and easy road can be opened by this way of acting both to conjugal infidelity and to the general weakening of the discipline of morals. Nor is long experience necessary for someone to discover human infirmity and to understand that people - and especially the young, so subject to the pressure of their desires - stand in need of incitements to observe the moral law and that it is wrong to proffer to them the easy road to violating the law itself. [HVn.17]

Clearly the situation in less developed nations is not the same as that in highly developed nations such as our own. But what we can now see in the reality of widespread successive marriage/partnerships, and a culture of sexual intimacy as a recreational activity whose only possible moral constraints are consent and the condom, can surely be foreseen in the future of those less developed nations if they are subject to the promotion of a contraceptive ideology and practice.

It is indeed to be feared that husbands, already accustomed to these ways of blocking conception, may forget the reverence due to their wives and, putting the well-being of their bodies and minds in second place, may make their wives into instruments at the service of their own desire and no longer value them as companions with whom they ought to go through life with respect and with love. [HV n.17]

The narrative of women's control over their own bodies, presented as if it is the only and universal narrative, should be put beside the equally possible alternative that the availability of contraception permits a greater control of men over women. One signal of this might be those women whose decisions for abortion are driven by the attitudes of boyfriends to their pregnancy, particularly if the pregnancy has resulted from a contraceptive failure. It is misleading to suggest that the marketing of contraceptives to women in less developed nations will uniformly have the effect of increasing the empowerment of women.

… unless we wish the duty of procreating life to be left to the arbitrary decision of human beings, we must necessarily recognise that there are some limits beyond which it is not licit to proceed in the power which a person can exercise over his or her own body in undertaking tasks which are natural to it; limits, we say, which it is licit for no-one, either as a private individual or as one endowed with public authority, to violate. These limits are not established for any other reason that that of the reverence which is due to the human body as a whole and to its natural functions... [HV n.17]

And with the promotion of LGBT ideology and an ideology of gender - what Pope Francis refers to as an "ideological colonisation of the family" - we see, at the level of our culture, precisely a full implication of the removal of any accepted limits to what a person can licitly do with their bodies.

Some additional observations: about half of all women seeking abortions do so after using an effective means of contraception (source here). Penny Morduant cannot be unaware of this, and one can suspect that, in asking the Catholic Church to change its teaching on contraception, she also foresees abortion provision.

Pope Benedict, at the 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae:

The possibility of procreating a new human life is included in a married couple's integral gift of themselves. Since, in fact, every form of love endeavours to spread the fullness on which it lives, conjugal love has its own special way of communicating itself: the generation of children. Thus it not only resembles but also shares in the love of God who wants to communicate himself by calling the human person to life. Excluding this dimension of communication through an action that aims to prevent procreation means denying the intimate truth of spousal love, with which the divine gift is communicated: "If the mission of generating life is not to be exposed to the arbitrary will of men, one must necessarily recognize insurmountable limits to the possibility of man's domination over his own body and its functions; limits which no man, whether a private individual or one invested with authority, may licitly surpass" (Humanae Vitae, n. 17). This is the essential nucleus of the teaching that my Venerable Predecessor Paul VI addressed to married couples and which the Servant of God John Paul ii, in turn, reasserted on many occasions, illuminating its anthropological and moral basis.

Forty years after the Encyclical's publication we can understand better how decisive this light was for understanding the great "yes" that conjugal love involves. In this light, children are no longer the objective of a human project but are recognized as an authentic gift, to be accepted with an attitude of responsible generosity toward God, the first source of human life. This great "yes" to the beauty of love certainly entails gratitude, both of the parents in receiving the gift of a child, and of the child himself, in knowing that his life originates in such a great and welcoming love.

Pope Francis, speaking during his visit to the Phillipines:

The family is also threatened by growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage, by relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by a lack of openness to life.

I think of Blessed Paul VI. At a time when the problem of population growth was being raised, he had the courage to defend openness to life in families. He knew the difficulties that are there in every family, and so in his Encyclical he was very merciful towards particular cases, and he asked confessors to be very merciful and understanding in dealing with particular cases. But he also had a broader vision: he looked at the peoples of the earth and he saw this threat of families being destroyed for lack of children. Paul VI was courageous; he was a good pastor and he warned his flock of the wolves who were coming. From his place in heaven, may he bless this evening!

And, later this year, Pope Francis will canonise Pope Paul VI. It is difficult to see these actions as anything other than an affirmation by Pope Francis of the teaching of Paul VI.

The Synod on Marriage and the Family

I have for some time now been meaning to link to this sequence of posts about the Synod.

The Synod on Marriage and the Family 1

The Synod on Marriage and the Family 2

The Synod on Marriage and the Family 3

The Synod on Marriage and the Family 4

The Synod on Marriage and the Family 5

The Synod on Marriage and the Family 6

The Synod on Marriage and the Family 7

The Synod on Marriage and the Family 8

I am particularly struck by Fr Richard's suggestion that Humanae Vitae teaches the mission of spouses for the transmission of life and places their mission centre stage, not just in the life of the Church, but in the life of the world.

Je suis Stefano, je suis Domenico (UPDATED - AGAIN)

Messrs Dolce and Gabbano are taking some criticism from the great and good over the content of an interview given to the Italian magazine Panorama. In publishing the text of the interview online (sorry, no time to translate), Panorama observes that much of the (international) controversy has arisen as a result of Elton John's intervention rather than from a reading of the text of the interview itself. Unfortunately, the words that provoked the ire of the great and good occur early in the interview thus losing a certain context that is gained by reading the rest of the interview.

The first context is a project of Dolce and Gabbano to gather images of families from all over the world: #DGfamily, with its strapline "The family is our point of reference". The #DGfamily archive is also the subject of a study at the Centre for Fashion and Cultural Production at the Catholic University of Milan. There is also a context in their recent presentation of their collection at Milan Fashion Week.

The recognition that it is not possible/appropriate that a relationship such as their own should be seen as a marriage or a family, or that it should issue in children, represent an interesting contribution to contemporary discussion on the family. The Panorama interview, seen as a whole, offers a fascinating reflection on the question of the family, from the point of view of two gay men (at one time in a relationship but now just professional colleagues) and from  the point of view of  their own experiences of lives lived in families. The interview offers an argument for a permanence in value of the "traditional family" - they do not believe there is any family other than that. Clearly Elton John - with two children conceived through IVF and carried by a surrogate mother - has a stake in trying to silence this point of view.

Which is why the most fundamental thing to be said in the context of the controversy following Elton John's intervention is said at the beginning of further coverage at Panorama online:

"Dolce e Gabbana sono liberi di esprimersi sulla famiglia e sui figli, nessuno ha diritto di censurarli, come hanno preteso di fare Elton John e altri"... [Dolce and Gabbana are free to express themselves on the family and on children, no-one has the right to censor them, as Elton John and others have tried to do...]

Or, as the title of this post says:

Je suis Stefano, je suis Domenico 

The Catholic theologian commenting in Panorama does not accept the description of IVF conceived children as "children of a chemistry" or "synthetic children" given by Domenico Dolce in the interview, wishing instead to refer to them as children who "remain human individuals ... who have a dignity and value as such". However, he insists that it is possible to remain critical of the means used to conceive such a child whilst still respecting and recognising them fully as human persons. Mgr Cozzoli goes on to offer a very capable exposition of a Catholic position for a general audience.

The whole original interview is worth reading, but I offer a flavour here. Domenico Dolce's reply to the question "Would you like to have been parents?":

Sono gay, non posso avere un figlio. Credo che non si possa avere tutto dalla vita, se non c’è vuol dire che non ci deve essere. È anche bello privarsi di qualcosa. La vita ha un suo percorso naturale, ci sono cose che non vanno modificate. E una di queste è la famiglia. [I am gay, I cannot have a child. I believe that it is not possible to have everything in life, if it is not possible one can say that it must not be. And it is also beautiful to deny oneself something. Life has a natural course, there are things that cannot be changed. And one of these is the family.] 

This article offers more comment on the Dolce and Gabbana vs. Elton John controversy, and usefully summarises the substance of the interview as follows:

The sexual complementarity of parents, the indispensability of the mother and father, and the centrality of love in procreative relationships, are serious issues, and Gabbana’s praise of the ‘supernatural sense of belonging’ in family life strike me as a charismatic endorsement of the family.

UPDATED: Thinking Faith has a post here that comments on the Elton John/Dolce and Gabbana flare up in terms of the nature of the internet and how St Ignatius might suggest we use that medium: #BoycottOnlineAnger: Elton John and Dolce & Gabbana . I quote from this post:

...St Ignatius’s advice to spiritual directors in the famous Paragraph 22 of the Spiritual Exercises, which says the following:

“To assure better cooperation between the one who is giving the Exercises and the exercitant, and more beneficial results for both, it is necessary to suppose that every good Christian is more ready to put a good interpretation on another’s statement than to condemn it as false.”

This is often referred to as the ‘Presupposition’, and it has a wider application than the Exercises: is a foundation stone for all civil communication. 

Whilst I have not followed events fully, it is apparent that Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have received more support for the position on marriage articulated in their interview than one might have expected.

UPDATED - AGAIN: see also this blog post at the Tablet website: Children raised by gay parents thank Dolce and Gabbana.

Will they never be satisfied?

 

Even when Pope Francis preaches Humanae Vitae ...... see here to gain an understanding of the context, or here for in-depth analysis, and the original text here (scroll quite a long way down); here (again, scroll down to find the paragraph referring to Paul VI)...... and don't forget the meeting with the association of large families in December (here) ......... they can't be satisfied.

H/T Jackie Parkes for the image

Pope Francis in Sri Lanka and the Philippines

I have not been able to follow Pope Francis journey to Sri Lanka and the Philippines as closely as I would have liked.

Catholic News Agency have good coverage at their page dedicated to the visit: Pope in Sri Lanka and the Philippines 2015 , Pope in Sri Lanka - Latest News and Pope in Philippines - Latest News . The Vatican website has a page dedicated to the visit, though the links to the English language texts from this page are not complete at the time of my posting: Apostolic Journey to Sri Lanka and the Philippines.

As I often suggest, I think it is valuable to read the original sources, and to read them whole not in part. One can often find that the headline picked out by one or other media outlet fails to do justice to the whole and, indeed, sometimes misrepresents the very point that it picks out.

There is a full transcript of the questions and answers with journalists on the flight from Sri Lanka to the Philippines here, for example. The items that have caught my attention from this interview:

The answer to the question about the forthcoming encyclical on man's relationship with the created world: I was struck by the range of consultation behind the encyclical, by the reference to the writings of Patriarch Bartholomew and Romano Guardini and by the issues of deforestation and lack of crop rotation cited as examples that Pope Francis has considered. There does not seem to me to be anything here indicating the kind of adherence to climate change as an ideology that has been decried by much of the speculative media coverage of the forthcoming encyclical.

Pope Francis' response to being given an image of St Therese of Lisieux: this is at the end of the interview, and reported more fully by Abbey Roads here with a link to CNA News/EWTN.

Pope Francis' reply to a question about a commission for truth and reconciliation in Sri Lanka, following the civil strife there: It is fascinating to read Pope Francis' account of his meeting with the President of Sri Lanka, of how the President spoke of creating "harmony in the people" and of his affirmation that "we must touch peoples hearts" to achieve peace. It reminded me of Pope Francis influence for peace in the Middle East in meeting with the President of Israel and the President of the Palestinian Territories.

Catholic News Agency are carrying a report of Pope Francis' address during a meeting with families in Manila (though with a mistranslation which uses the word "professors" where the original text is "confessors") under the title Paul VI was right to warn against contraception, Pope Francis says. This report highlights Pope Francis' praise for Pope Paul VI's teaching in Humanae Vitae. An unremarked aspect of the controversial-for-some relatios of last October's Synod was the clear presumption in favour of the teaching of Humanae Vitae, with no suggestion being made that that teaching should be overturned. The full text of Pope Francis' address is at the Vatican website, and reading that text, the following passage also struck me. Pope Francis was speaking in the context of the way in which St Joseph was twice guided in his dreams by angels:

I am very fond of dreams in families. For nine months every mother and father dream about their baby. Am I right? [Yes!] They dream about what kind of child he or she will be... You can’t have a family without dreams. Once a family loses the ability to dream, children do not grow, love does not grow, life shrivels up and dies. So I ask you each evening, when you make your examination of conscience, to also ask yourselves this question: Today did I dream about my children’s future? Today did I dream about the love of my husband, my wife? Did I dream about my parents and grandparents who have gone before me? Dreaming is very important. Especially dreaming in families. Do not lose this ability to dream!

How many difficulties in married life are resolved when we leave room for dreaming, when we stop a moment to think of our spouse, and we dream about the goodness present in the good things all around us. So it is very important to reclaim love by what we do each day. Do not ever stop being newlyweds!

Isn't Pope Francis just wonderful!

Appreciating Paul VI: part 7

Humane Vitae.

Francis Phillips has already said essentially what I would want to say about Pope Paul VI and Humanae Vitae: The future Blessed Pope Paul VI was a great champion of family life (but I think one can safely ignore the comments on Francis' post).

That Popes subsequent to Pope Paul have not only held to the teaching of Humanae Vitae but have offered able and contemporary defences of its teaching strikes me as being very significant.

And I suspect that a complete sociological analysis of the response of Catholics to Humanae Vitae will, as well as verifying the extent to which its teaching may have been ignored, also reveal the extent of faithful living out of the teaching by many. This latter group, of course, do not catch the media attention of the former.

"And he would much rather a child not be conceived than aborted."

In a post entitled Cameron takes on the Pope, His Grace offers some discussion of Catholic teaching (and practice/non-practice of that teaching) with regard to contraception.

I am not sure myself of the premise of this post - that Prime Minister Cameron did set about taking on the Pope - though His Grace has taken up an interpretation offered elsewhere in the blogosphere. Indeed, as reported in the Tablet, David Cameron's words could be seen as denying legitimacy to moves other than argument to pressure the Holy See on the question, something that might be quite significant given moves made by some to try and reduce the status of the Holy See at the United Nations, for example:

David Cameron was speaking yesterday at a London summit on family planning organised by Melinda Gates, wife of Microsoft tycoon Bill. Mr Cameron was asked by a member of the audience how to put pressure on the Holy See to overcome its opposition to contraception.  

He said: "The answer lies in the strength of our arguments. That is the way to overcome arguments for doing nothing. If you give women the power to decide, the power to choose about their own futures: that is in the interests of their families, their children and their countries."

His Grace does demonstrate his usual acerbic wit, at the expense perhaps of both the Church of Rome and that of England, depending on the perspective of the reader:

Tony Blair challenged Pope Benedict XVI on homosexuality; David Cameron has chosen contraception. In each case, they appear to believe that centuries of Roman Catholic orthodoxy can be overturned by 'the strength of our arguments'. They mistake Rome's Magisterium for the Church of England's General Synod. The motto of the Church of Rome is 'Semper Eadem'; that of the Church of England is 'Argumentum ad Nauseam'.

But I fear His Grace also demonstrates a certain infelicity that is unusual for him (or is perhaps the Arch-episcopal tongue being placed just a little too subtly in the Arch-episcopal cheek?).

And that leaves millions of Roman Catholics all over the world somewhat at variance with their church on this matter. Everyone knows that the papal ban on artificial birth control is largely ignored, and many millions of otherwise sincere and obedient Roman Catholics long for a change of policy.

Now, the estimated number of Catholics in the world is about 1.2 bn, and growing by about 15 m a year. Does the millions at variance to whom His Grace refers therefore represent but a minority? And how does "everyone know" in any case? There certainly is a vociferous opposition to the Church's teaching by some; and, though the nature of the case means that the extent to which Catholics act contrary to that teaching might never be absolutely known, some there are that do act in so contrary a manner. But then the occurrence of theft in predominantly Catholic countries probably also tells us that many Catholics act contrary to the Church's teaching on that matter, too. The thief in his better moment will recognise the wrongness of his action; and perhaps, too, the contracepting Catholic couple in the depths of their hearts recognise an action contrary to Church teaching. Even less do we hear of those Catholic couples who are faithful to the teaching of the Church, but undoubtedly there are such couples and, on a world-wide scale, they should be numbered in the same millions to which His Grace refers in his post.

And presenting the question as a matter of "policy" that might be changed does, of course, contradict what His Grace has already said about the nature of magisterium for Catholic teaching.

I have added the italics to the extract that follows, though the other two sentences would also be worthy of comment:

His Grace, being Anglican, happens to believe that condoms save lives, especially in Africa. And he would much rather a child not be conceived than aborted. For these reasons, in this incontinent age of unrestraint, he believes that contraception should be accessible across the globe.

The italics do indeed ask a poignant question, a question that it does take some considerable thought to untangle. There are two questions here, not one. Is it right to contracept? An ethical decision made by a couple at the moment of intercourse. Is it right to abort? An ethical decision made (by a mother? by a couple?) once a pregnancy is known. Underlying a decision with regard to each of these questions one can see a likeness in intentionality (in the phenomenological sense of that term). The likeness in intentionality can be seen in the orientation (or not), the openess (or not), of the love of the couple expressed in the act of intercourse towards the life of a child who, in the one case, might come to have life and in the other case is already in possession of life. That intentionality is what is common to the decision whether or not to contracept or to abort; it is not that the decision in favour of contracepting represents a decision against aborting, or that a policy promoting contraception is therefore a policy that opposes abortion. The two elements of His Grace's suggestion do indeed need to be untangled.

And is it to much to challenge our age to become one that is continent and restrained?

What value maternity?

My main "day job" is as a science teacher. From time to time, students comment about how much better I could have done in life if I had worked in industry instead of in the teaching profession. I usually try to point out to them that, though they hadn't really intended it in that way, they have in fact undertaken a valuation of my work (with them) as a teacher, and that the outcome of that valuation has been that my work as a teacher is not considered of a high value. They are, of course, implicitly if not explicitly, valuing my work only on the basis of its relative financial reward. It happened to me again this week.

But I think we also need to be wary of some other instances of inadvertent valuation that take place.
A few weeks ago I saw a poster locally with the strap line, "Condoms are free. Babies are not", against a background image of baby clothes, bedding, etc. Now the underlying message, aimed at young people in an area of London with a high pregnancy rate among young people, that bearing children involves a long term responsibility to those children is quite understandable and it can form a legitimate part of sex and relationships education. Catholics might well not support the use of condoms as the answer, wishing to suggest that sexual restraint and chastity are the ethically more sound alternatives, constituting a more true sense of the idea of "responsible parenthood" as taught by Humanae Vitae. But much more subtle in the strap line is the implicit valuation of children, negatively, in terms of their financial cost to young parents.

This morning a head line to BBC Radio 4 coverage of  summit being held in London to promote the provision of contraceptive services referred to pregnancy as being the biggest cause of death among teenage girls (I can't remember the exact words, and can't readily find them on the BBC Today programme site). The particular reference was to a report from Save the Children: Pregnancy is the biggest killer of teenage girls worldwide and a conference being held in London under the aegis of the Department for International Development: Family planning: UK to host summit with Gates Foundation.  As John Smeaton points out, 

... it is misleading to say that pregnancy or childbirth are in general causes of death. Haemorrhage, sepsis and infection may cause death. In most cases, death and serious injury can be averted by good maternity care, such as trained birth attendants, blood transfusion, antibiotics, etc.

But it is the subtle valuing of pregnancy as if it were a disease, something taken up uncritically by today's news coverage, that I think we should spot and resist.

Elton John and David Furnish: what does the word "parent" really mean?

Media reports this morning are headlining the welcome that Elton John and David Furnish are giving to their newborn baby. To be more precise, they report the welcome that is being given to the birth of a baby to a surrogate mother who has carried the baby for them. The BBC News report is here, and the original report on the USmagazine.com website is here. The BBC report includes a brief account of the unsuccesful attempt made by Elton John and David Furnish to adopt a child from the Ukraine.

The couple are quoted as saying that "we are proud and happy parents", and it is going to seem churlish to make critical comment about their "happiness and joy at this very special moment". However, whilst at one level this is a matter of the personal happiness and joy of Elton John and David Furnish, and at that level is in a way a "private" matter on which it would be wrong for anyone else to comment adversely, at another level this is a matter that has implications for society as a whole and therefore affects us all. It seems to me quite appropriate to comment at this second, public level whilst remaining respectful of the choices and decisions that Elton John and David Furnish have made in their own lives.

At this second, public level I would ask the following questions.

1. Should we share the "happiness and joy" of Elton John and David Furnish at this "very special moment", or can we recognise the sadness of the situation that will overshadow the very natural instinct to share their joy? A child has been created outside of the married relationship of a man and a woman, and of the sexual act between a husband and wife. A woman from outside any such relationship has conceived and carried to term a child to meet the wishes of others - in an objective and philosophical sense, the woman has been used as a means to an end rather than being recognised as a person who is an end in herself (though subjectively it is quite possible that her experience does not reflect this and she may feel she has had a positive experience of the events). The media reports indicate that the privacy of the surrogacy arrangements are going to be protected, so we may never know the whole story of this. A child has been created in a way that can be described as "instrumental" and, whilst to speculate about the motivation of Elton John and David Furnish would be to trespass on to the level of this matter that is rightly "private", nevertheless the precedent that it sets in the public consciousness for other same-sex couples raises the question at the public level of the creation of children, not as persons who are philosophically speaking an end in themselves, but are a means to fulfilling the felt needs of the same-sex couple.

2. What does it mean to be a "parent"? Can one separate the idea of being a "parent" from that of being a "father" and a "mother", as is being done very readily in this case? Should we go along with the implicit redefining of the idea of being a "parent" that removes from that idea the sense of male and female complementarity? The question can be examined from the point of view of biology, in which case parenthood might be defined by the male gene set ("fatherhood") and the female gene set ("motherhood") that come together, through the sexual relationship of the "father" and "mother",  to create the embryo and the new baby. Implicit at this biological level is the demand to care for the new baby that is also associated with the terms "father" and "mother". The question can also be examined from the point of view of persons - the "father" is the male figure who cares for the person of the new baby and the "mother" is the female figure who cares for that same person. Across both points of view a male-female complementarity is apparent. However a key insight of the teaching of Humanae Vitae, though apparent there in a different specific context, comes into play at this point. There should not be a chosen and willed separation of the content of the terms "father" and "mother" viewed from the point of view of persons from the content of those same terms viewed from the biological point of view. The two points of view offer an integrated, single concept of being a "parent" and therefore of being a "father" or a "mother". The one can only be truly lived if the other is also truly lived. Now Elton John and David Furnish might well have responsibility for the care of the baby that has been conceived and born for them, but that relationship of care is not one that can be correctly termed as being a "parent" or being "parents". One of the couple might be the "father" in the genetic sense, but not in any other sense. Neither of them is in any sense a "mother". So I think we should offer some critique of the way in which Elton John and David Furnish are describing themselves as "proud parents".

In summary, whilst at one level respecting the choices that Elton John and David Furnish have made in their own lives, at another level I feel able to offer a public critique of what they have done in using a surrogate mother to have a child. I am not able at this second, public level to share their "happiness and joy" or to accept that they are "parents" in a genuine sense.

UPDATE: Paulinus has a useful post on this matter here. The discussion among the comments to his post is also worth reading.

What did the Pope really say?

If you want to see what the Osservatore Romano actually published from Pope Benedict's forthcoming book interview, you can find it here. I quote below just the part that the media seem to have latched on to, with my own translation:

Vi possono essere singoli casi giustificati, ad esempio quando una prostituta utilizza un profilattico, e questo può essere il primo passo verso una moralizzazione, un primo atto di responsabilità per sviluppare di nuovo la consapevolezza del fatto che non tutto è permesso e che non si può far tutto ciò che si vuole. Tuttavia, questo non è il modo vero e proprio per vincere l'infezione dell'Hiv. È veramente necessaria una umanizzazione della sessualità.

There may be individual justifiable cases, when for example a prostitute uses a condom, and this might be the first step towards a moral action, a first step of responsibility for developing anew the awareness of the fact that not everything is permitted and that it is not allowed to do everything that one wants. Nevertheless, this is not the true and proper way to overcome infection by HIV. A humanization of sexuality is truly necessary.

There is a delicate nuance hidden in the Italian potere, a nuance between a suggestion of possibility and one of certainty. In English, it is the difference between "there may be" (as I have chosen to translate it) and "there can be". Given the simultaneous publication of the Pope's book in different languages, it will be interesting to see how this sentence is translated in the different languages. The English translation of the relevant passage - in full - can be found here, at the site of Catholic World Report. Do read this so that you can see the full context in which Pope Benedict made his remarks.

A post on the website of the American National Catholic Reporter offers a fuller analysis of what has happened here, and of the sense of Pope Benedict's words. This post offers a similar translation to mine above, a fuller explanation of the context of the Osservatore Romano's breach of an embargo and the unfortunate partiality in the selection of the extracts published. It also points out that, in being interviewed for a book, the Holy Father was not in any way undertaking an act of Church teaching. Let me offer one extract from this post, with my emphasis added:

Seewald: Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?

Benedict: She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.

So, actually, Pope Benedict says that, even in the situation in which he has speculated about a positive evaluation of condom use, "it is not a moral solution". The exact opposite of what the media are making of it all!

So, headlines like "Pope relaxes Vatican ban on condoms" and opening paragraphs like "The Pope has reversed decades of Roman Catholic teaching by saying that it is acceptable for some people to use condoms" [Ruth Gledhill on the front page of today's Sunday Times, though it could by any one of a number of other commentators] are less than fully consonant with the actualite of what Pope Benedict said.

And the delight of liberal Catholic commentators and pro-condom AIDS/HIV activists is going to look rather silly when the truth is out. I wonder whether they will admit that they got it wrong on what the Pope was actually saying?

H/T to Young Fogeys.

UPDATE: the full text of the clarification issued by the Vatican has been posted at Protect the Pope. It is a very careful exposition of the what the Pope has said. It has been quite amusing having BBC Radio on during the afternoon, and seeing, in successive news bulletins, a gradual shift away from the earlier reporting which suggested a major change in Catholic teaching towards a more qualified and nuanced comment.

PS: There is another discussion to be had around Pope Benedict's words quoted by Osservatore Romano under the heading "L'Humanae Vitae", though I am aware that the Osservatore Romano quotation might not give the full context. In the quoted passage, Pope Benedict observes first that the perspectives of Humanae Vitae remain valid, but that there is another question which is that of how to find a way of following that teaching in the human situation. The Holy Father suggests that those who follow this teaching provide an example that others can follow, and then says (sorry, my translation here is a bit shaky):

Siamo peccatori. Ma non dovremmo assumere questo fatto come istanza contro la verità, quando cioè quella morale alta non viene vissuta.

We are sinners. But we must not assume this fact as an argument against the truth, so that the high morality is not lived out.

Which is, of course, a very important qualification on the part of the Holy Father of any argument of "gradualism" in living the moral life that might be read in to his remarks.

Cherie Blair at the Angelicum

I have at last got round to reading the text of the lecture that Cherie Blair gave at a day conference at the Pontifical University of St Thomas (the Angelicum) in Rome in December 2008. I have two texts to hand, one which I downloaded and printed in December, soon after the lecture itself, and a second text on the official Cherie Blair website. This latter text appears to be a fuller version of the earlier text, but, since I cannot now find my source for the first text, I cannot say this for certain. A transcript of a recording of the lecture is posted at Lifesite News; this transcript is very close to my earlier text, but in at least one point, it completely reverses the sense.

Perhaps the main difference between the two texts - and this appears to represent a difference between the lecture as delivered and the lecture as written up for posting on the website - lies in the concluding paragraphs. The website text is quite forthright in its attack on the Church's teaching on contraception, whereas the delivered text is more indirect. Cherie Blair cites Pope Benedict XVI's insistence that there is no contradiction between faith and reason, referring to his address at Regensburg, and then says:

Yet in relation to contraception the Church has preferred to avoid revisiting old doctrines in the light of present day knowledge.

The reality is that many Catholic couples, exercising their own consciences, in fact limit their families as the declining birth rates in Europe and the US testify. But in the face of the plague of HIV/AIDs where the Church has played such a role of compassionate ministry; that work is undermined by our refusal to allow the use of condoms which are literally making the difference between life and death across the world. And beyond HIV/Aids in a world where two thirds of world’s poor are women, to prevent the devout but poor in the third world, the choice that the devout but rich in the first world have to regulate their own fertility and thus release the potential of women to participate fully in economic and political life just reinforces the stubborn gap between the haves and have nots which the Church campaigns against so passionately across the world....

..unless [the Church] is prepared to be informed and changed by that Enlightenment rationality praised by Pope Benedict at Regensburg, unless it is prepared to look again with clear eyes at what is fundamental truth and what is just a reflection of the culture of the past that voice will be diminished and even distorted to the detriment of the mission of the Church to bring spirituality, wisdom and compassion to the modern world.

It is, of course, quite disingenous to cite Pope Benedict as if his thought provides a basis for supporting a point of view that he would in fact oppose quite strongly. Particularly when Cherie has cited earlier in her lecture Pope Benedict's warning against the "subjective 'conscience' becoming the sole arbiter of what is ethical".

There is, however, a very positive section in Cherie Blair's lecture. This comes in a section headed "The Church and Human Rights", the second section of the lecture. The website text appears to replace a section of the delivered lecture outlining the origin of the discourse on human rights in general with a fuller account of the thought of Pope John XXIII expressed in Pacem in Terris and of Pope John Paul II. I do not reproduce it here but refer the reader to the link above to read it directly. There is also an interesting recognition that the Church contributes a religious underpinning to the principle of universal human rights that genuinely adds something when compared to an exclusively secular understanding. And an interesting citation about the universality of human rights, that they apply to all people. This is a section of the lecture that is well worth reading.

In trying to understand exactly where Cherie Blair is coming from, I recognise two "hermeneutic principles" at play in her lecture. The first is to treat the role of women in terms of "leadership" or "rank". In the text as it appears to have been delivered, Mary Ann Glendon, as head of the Pontifical Academy for the Social Sciences is described as "the highest ranking woman in the Church"; and the roles of Edith Stein, Mother Teresa and others are described as "leadership roles". In the website text this language of leadership is extended, perhaps softened, to include the language of "breaking down barriers to female participation". The language of "participation" is quite nuanced, and to participate is not the same thing as to lead; but I think one should recognise that for Cherie Blair it is a language that refers to leadership and positions of rank in the Church.

However, if we are really to understand the part played by women like Edith Stein and Mother Teresa in the Church, a hermeneutic of "leadership" and "rank" does not work. Instead, one needs a hermeneutic of the "evangelical counsels" which define the religious life that they embraced, and the spirit that is reflected in a genuinely Christian lay lifestyle of those who are active in the Church. I think one can legitimately suggest, as Cherie Blair did, that more women could have roles in the Curia. But that should conform to an authentically ecclesial hermeneutic, which is not one that can be fully expressed in the terminology of leadership and rank. Indeed, a hermeneutic of "leadership" and "rank" misunderstands the part that men should play, too.

The second key "hermeneutic principle" for Cherie Blair is that of freedom for women with regard to child care, and by implication, to an extent at least, from child birth (their "ability to control their own fertility"). For her, the promotion of women's rights only comes about where being a mother does not come in the way of women taking leadership roles. So, for example, in the text of the lecture as it appears to have been delivered, Cherie says of Edith Stein and Mother Teresa that "in return for leadership roles they had to turn away from having children. As a result the Church, like the rest of our society, did not accept the equality of every woman in practice". Fundamental to this, of course, is access to contraception, and this is the basis of Cherie Blair's forthright attack on the Church's teaching on this topic.

It is quite fascinating to see what is present in the text of the lecture as it appears to have been delivered - but has been taken out in favour of the much stronger attack on the Church's teaching on contraception in the website text:

And, while I am on record, as having had difficulties with the current teaching on responsible parenthood, I do recognize that much of what Paul VI predicted could happen in Humanae Vitae as a result of what could happen as a result of wide and indiscriminate use of abortion has been born out in particular in relation to baby girls as the birth ratios of boys to girls in some countries testify. What those lost girls demonstrate is that, across the world, we lack the widely held sense of the contribution of women which is important to society in its own right. The situation of too many women in the developing world shows that we are still far away from women being regarded as of equal worth to men. Here the over-whelming problems: economic, education and health related.

The British Independent newspaper commenting on the 1994 UN Population conference in Cairo singled out the Catholic Church for praise – not something it always does – it persuasively argued that, by being one of the leading providers of education across the developing world, the Church is making a powerful contribution to improving the lives of women, lifting them out of poverty and enabling them to reduce levels of child-birth, which can be, and is actually often dangerous to their health. History teaches us that improving the general economic situation and particularly improving women’s educational levels, gives women more power in society and helps them exercise more responsible fertility.

The appropriate hermeneutic to respond to this second hermeneutic of Cherie Blair's is that provided by the "theology of the body". In other words, a hermeneutic based on an integration of the sexual aspects of women's (and man's) existence into a whole of life. Such a hermeneutic has its application to both married and religious life.

Whilst it is very easy to attack Cherie Blair's lecture for its dissent from Catholic teaching, it is also useful to clearly identify the two "hermeneutics" which underpin it. These can then be evaluated in their relation to wider Catholic thinking and to the thinking of the non-Catholic world.

Humanae Vitae - after forty years

I have hesitated to post about Humanae Vitae - age wise, I belong to the generation whose active life in the Church came "after HV" and so do not have any direct memories of 1968, and, in terms of marital status, I am single, so cannot speak from experience of trying to live according to this particular teaching of the Church.

My memories of the publication of Humanae Vitae are mediated. We were at primary school at the time, attending the English section of an international school attached to a military headquarters in Holland. Much later in life, mother told us that we came home from school at that time asking "What is this pill that everyone is on about?"

From my early life as an active Catholic, I cannot recall any instance of a clear, firm, well argued presentation of the teaching of Humanae Vitae - not at school, not in the parishes I then attended, not in an episcopal pastoral letter. I sometimes wonder how I would have fared in this regard had I been looking to marry in my mid-20's.

I do recall from around university days that the attitude you adopted to Humanae Vitae was a kind of "test question" that indicated the orthodox Catholic from the liberal. And the first place I encountered a clear, firm, well argued presentation of the teaching of Humanae Vitae was through FAITH Movement, which I encountered at this time. At this time, if I recall correctly, Fr Edward Holloway always seemed to be talking about sex and chastity at their events .... but, with hindsight, I think a lot of pastoral insight and experience lay behind this.

But one of the most interesting experiences I had in this regard was World Youth Day 2005 in Cologne. I only read about some of the activities of dissenting organisations there when I got back home afterwards - they made virtually no impact on the young people taking part, something that I suspect will have been true of the recent events in Sydney. At the catecheses I attended in Cologne, the young people demonstrated a total faithfulness to the Church. At one point, a bishop described television coverage he had watched of Pope Benedict XVI's arrival in Cologne the day before. After an interview with a dissenting theologian from America, the report had returned to an Italian young person in Cologne. Her answer? No, we don't think the Church should change its teaching. We think we should change, so that we become more like Christ. And the young people attending this catechesis applauded the bishop's account of this to the echo.

But returning to Fr Holloway. The teaching of Humanae Vitae in the Church, like any teaching of the Church, has a catechetical dimension and a pastoral dimension. When a couple come to marriage preparation, they should not be hearing the teaching of Humanae Vitae for the first time. Their vocational choice for marriage needs to already include the attempt to live according to the teaching of Humanae Vitae - and it is only going to do that if the couple have received it in earlier catechesis. It needs to be something that the couple themselves bring to the marriage, not something that they experience as being imposed on them by the programme of preparation, as a kind of condition attached to the marriage ceremony. So an effective catechesis in the general life of the Church - parish and school - allows for a proper pastoral presentation at the level of the individual case, a pastoral presentation that is experienced as positive and yet remains faithful to the Church's teaching.

But it is a topic that people do not want to talk about - so the catechesis is omitted. Which is why I think Fr Holloway showed a fundamentally correct insight, both in catechetical and pastoral terms.

A couple of thoughts to finish. A particular pastoral situation - and a very difficult one - arises where one of the partners to a marriage is not a Catholic. If marriage is seen as a vocational choice, should a Catholic partner see a fiance(e)'s unwillingness to live by the Church's teaching on contraception as an indicator that this is not the person they are called to marry? And, whilst priests and bishops clearly have a teaching office in the Church, what of catechists? Should lay people, catechists and others, be more willing to teach Humanae Vitae in their work in parishes and schools?