Humanae Vitae topic of clergy talk

By KARA KOCZUR, Globe staff reporter
July 24, 2008

When most people hear the words Humanae Vitae, they think it's the Catholic Church's ban on birth control, forcing them to have endless numbers of children, said Sister Renee Mirkes, OSF.

But that's not true.

"The choice is between an immoral way to plan your family and a moral way," said Sister Renee, director of NaProEthics at the Pope Paul VI Institute in Omaha. "It has everything to do with the beauty of family life [and] the dignity of human procreation."

Sister Renee spoke to about 40 people, mainly clergy, July 23 at the Sioux City convention center about Pope Paul VI's encyclical "Humane Vitae." The presentation, which was geared toward clergy, broke down parts of the document showing its importance in helping couples live out their vocation as married people. It coincided with NFP Awareness Week, July 20-26, and was held two days before the 1968 encyclical's 40th anniversary.

"Pope Paul VI predicted that as a society if we would approve of contraception, basically 'lifeless sex,' we can expect several debilitating consequences," Sister Renee said.

Those consequences, which can be seen in the present day, include abortions, affairs, pre-marital sex, and abuse of mothers and children to name a few.

"I plead with priests, do not be silent," she said. "Spread the truth as if you were discovering it for the first time. Much is at stake."

Sister Mirkes said that the encyclical states that priests and the church have the authority to teach on the issue of procreation because it is based on the natural law and "the church is an expert on humanity." It's also confirmed and enriched by Divine Revelation, which can be seen in John Paul II's Theology of the Body, she said.

Although priests don't practice NFP themselves, by their vow of celibacy they are committed to the same virtue of chastity NFP helps married couples live, said Dr. David Lopez, chancellor of the diocese and who together with Mercy Medical Center helped organize the event.

"The leadership of the priests as celibate clergy is very, very crucial," Lopez said. "It's not heard from the pulpit enough. Individual priests may do an excellent job on it, but the clergy as a whole, it's not the foremost issue."

Sister Renee also presented some objections people had to the church's teaching on the regulation of births, especially during the late '60s when Humanae Vitae was promulgated. Such objections include economic concerns, concerns about crowded living arrangements and that the contribution of women to the workplace will be jeopardized.

Another concern relates to demographics. Some worry that a point will come when there won't be enough food or resources to support the population. However, Sister Renee noted, advancements in agricultural technology have made this a non-issue.

Yet, she said, these objections don't change the church's teaching, affirmed in Humanae Vitae that "each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life."

"The question of regulation of birth is more than a biological, demographical or sociological problem," Sister Renee pointed out. "It has spiritual and personal implications."

That is because the church has the total vision of the human person as a body and soul composite, she said. A person cannot be reduced to just a body or just a soul.

"What I do with my body doesn't just have physical implications, but spiritual and personal implications," Sister Renee said, adding that the procreative and unitive dimensions of sex can never be separated. "The decisions couples make in NFP has implications on how that couple will get to their final end."

Just as there is complete reciprocal love between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Sister Renee said, so must husbands and wives make a complete self-gift to each other, including the gift of their fertility.

"Just as God's love manifests its perfection in giving life," she said, "so must married love."

The hope, Lopez said, is that clergy will learn something from the presentation that will help them to better present the church's teaching on human sexuality in sacramental preparation and in preaching.

People are bombarded consistently with sexual images in the world falsely portraying sex as being all about "me," he said, which is why people need to hear the truth about sexuality consistently in the church.

While there is nothing specifically planned for future clergy education on issues related to procreation, Lopez said that this fall one of the topics set to be discussed at the clergy's continuing formation days on faithful citizenship is the proper teaching of life issues in the political sphere.

"This is a theme we want to push relatively strongly," he said, adding that it isn't the only one. "We hope that [the clergy's] leadership on this issue will be inspiring for the faithful in the parishes, so that the church can be the sign of contradiction in the world that we are called to be."