In keeping with the Church's long-standing theological premise for its position, all three of these documents set forth the problematic nature of contraception on the basis of natural law. They also speak to varying degrees about marriage as a sacrament-Casti Connubii and Gaudium et Spes a great deal, Humanae Vitae very little. But they seem largely unconcerned with specifying a link between contraception and a sacramental view of marriage.

Pope John Paul II, in his post-synodal apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio [hereafter, FC] is less diffident about the connection.19 The manner in which he relates the two can best be seen by first considering his denunciation of contraception:

When couples, by means of recourse to contraception, separate these two meanings [the unitive and the procreative] that God the Creator has inscribed in the being of man and woman and in the dynamism of their sexual communion, they act as "arbiters" of the divine plan and they "manipulate" and degrade human sexuality-and with it themselves and their married partner-by altering its value of "total" self-giving. Thus 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. (FC §32)

In conveying the moral gravity of the act of contraception, John Paul does not mince words. But what is critical to emphasize here is that the notion of the totality of self-gift-exerted in heavy-handed

contraception in line with what the Church had already declared morally impermissible. The papal commission ultimately concluded that there is, in fact, no moral distinction between the pill and other forms of contraception that had already been banned; see John Finnis, Religion and Public Reasons: Collected Essays Volume V (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011): 346-48. Finnis relies here in part on a published interview with Catholic philosopher Germain Grisez ("Germain Grisez on Humanae Vitae, Then and Now," Zenit. org, July 14, 2003, https://zenit.org/articles/germain-grisez-on-humanaevitae-then-and-now/).19 Pope John Paul II, Post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio (1981).

Toggle SidebarMagisterium AIMagisterium AI

Magisterium AI

Login for more usage & features

Marriage, Sacramental Grace, and Contraception

Magisterium AI
Magisterium AI