III

As I read the Papal Birth Control Commission majority’s “Pastoral Approaches,” I was reminded of Bernard Lonergan’s famous distinction between the “classicist” worldview and the “historical-minded” worldview.⁵ These two types of consciousness or ways of looking at reality have been subject to much commentary, pro and con. In fact, I contend that our deepest disagreements in moral theology are rooted in the conflicting approaches to this distinction: Are these two worldview categories even legitimate? If so, which worldview is correct? Have these worldviews been subject to caricature in their respective descriptions? While most would affirm the dominance of historical consciousness today, is there still anything left to be said for the classicist worldview?⁶

Without attempting to answer these questions, we can at least affirm the obvious: We look back on this document and the times in which it was written from the vantage point of five decades of experience. In fact, it is necessary to reflect once again on “Pastoral Approaches” because many of its arguments and positions are resurfacing in the debates over “reinterpreting” Humanae Vitae (HV) on its 50^th anniversary.⁷

So yes, there is much truth to the idea that over time we grow in our understanding of various truths, principles, and historical realities that we did not or were not able to have (or fully have) at the time. But objective truth remains what it is, while the “signs of the times” change, i.e., circumstances and situations are in constant flux. “Pastoral Approaches” itself claims that over time a “clearer view of the multiple responsibilities of married couples” has emerged. That may well be true, of course, but not it seems in the way the authors intended. Namely, they approved of contraception and wanted the church to approve it too—albeit in a restricted way. But the last 50 years have not been kind to their position, just as Pope Paul VI “predicted” would happen: i.e., many negative consequences would come to pass if contraception were widely adopted (see HV, 17).⁸

“Pastoral Approaches” alludes also to the threat of overpopulation when it speaks of how “the conscience of married couples has [now] been faced with a different situation.” That is, it is no longer the case that nations must worry about how they will replenish their populations, but how they will get their population growth under control. We know, however, that those threats were exaggerated and, at least today, we are dealing with what can be called the “population bust” in many parts of the world, especially the West.⁹

The document actually often sounds—both then and now—quite traditional in its language and in the values it affirms (e.g., procreation), the practices it commends (e.g., continence), and the actions it condemns (e.g., abortion). There is, however, an important shift in meaning, with grave repercussions for conjugal morality, as we shall see. For instance, the authors argue that spouses must now attend to a “complex of obligations.” Well, who could disagree? And while they affirm that marriage remains ordered to the bonum prolis [offspring]— Vatican Council II’s Gaudium et Spes (GS) had similarly affirmed the same doctrine two years earlier¹⁰—the church, they say, has come to a fuller realization that marriage is also a “communion of love.” Again, that is also true.

What is condemned, according to the authors of “Pastoral Approaches,” are not so much specific contraceptive acts, but rather general selfish contraceptive attitudes: “the unjustified refusal of life, arbitrary human intervention for the sake of egoistic pleasure; in short, the rejection of procreation as a specific task of marriage” (my emphasis). Thus, what is immoral is an arbitrary “contraceptive mentality” or an approach to conjugal relations that is “anti-conception” —not the “regulation of conception” per se, which remains a duty to be carried out in a spirit of “generous charity” and in accord with the “objective criteria of morality.” (For the latter, the document most likely has in mind GS, 51).

This sets up the document’s approval of contraceptive means of birth control. It is...