Missed opportunities this year
Fr Richard O’Connor, Professor of theology, Rome
As 2018 draws to a close I look back on it as a year of missed opportunities with regard to the encyclical letter Humanae Vitae (HV). It was the 50th anniversary of that prophetic document.
It was also the year of the World Meeting of Families (WMF), an event directly related to the issue of contraception because of the destructive effect contraception has on the family.
It was the year of the canonisation of Pope Paul VI, the author of the encyclical. It was also the year of the death of Fr James Good who kicked up a lot of dust against the encyclical.
And it was the year of the legalising of free-for-all abortion in Ireland, something directly related to contraception, because it is seen as back-up for failed contraception.
Earlier we had Ireland re-defining the family with the referendum on same sex “marriage”.
This type of relationship tries to give legitimacy to a kind of behaviour which sees sex as having no reference to life, only to pleasure, which is another way of describing what contraception is all about.
Blasphemy
Then, to end the year, a majority said ok to blasphemy, the mockery of God; which takes us to the root motive of the former issues: to get rid of God altogether.
I had expected that at the WMF the wisdom of Humanae Vitae would have been celebrated and put before people afresh; that it would have been one a central theme of the meeting and of the pope’s visit.
No such thing happened. Instead clerical child abuse was made central.
Watching the event as an outsider – I’m out of Ireland most of the year – one would think that this was the only problem at present in Ireland, that it was still rampant and that the bishops had done nothing about it to date, something utterly false.
The aim seems to have been to humiliate the pope on the matter and to nudge him to fire most of the bishops, on the assumption that they must have known about what was going on and did nothing.
This account
Just who fed the pope with this account of the situation in Ireland is something I would like to know.
Then came the canonisation of Pope Paul – a man who was made to suffer greatly for taking a stand on the evil of contraception, being betrayed by whole conferences of bishops in some countries and by many theologians and priests.
I was hoping that the event would be the signal for a new initiative to get the present generation of clergy to row in behind him and take up the cause of marital chastity, and to promote it afresh.
But, so far, nothing of the sort has happened, even though we have had 50 years to see the destructive effects of contraception, morally, socially and medically.
Despite those effects, policy in the West at many levels of Church and State seems to be to keep going on the same path of self-destruction.
If there was ever an example of the ostrich with his head in the sand this is one.
Why the train has left the station
I once heard a priest on local radio say that as for Humane Vitae, “the train has left the station on that.”
He meant that we should take it as settled that artificial contraception is now the order of the day because so many people practise it.
It is the old argument “They are all doing it so that must make it right for me too.”
I would like to know how often this priest had preached on the wrong of contraception in all his forty plus years in ministry.
If seldom or never, then it is easy to see why the train has left the station - with a lot of duped Catholics on board.
Happy with contradictions
If a good man finds that he has contradicted himself, perhaps inadvertently, he is embarrassed. He feels he has deceived people and is ashamed.
Not so with those who govern us, it seems, or those who go along with their policies. Child abuse is declared a great evil but abortion, outright killing, is declared to be a right.
There is absolute freedom of choice for women who want abortion but no freedom for those who have a conscientious objection.
People condemn the Nazi’s for what they did in Auschwitz and then legalise the same themselves. They cheer the pope when he comes to visit them and then, when he is gone, they give the green light to blasphemy.
Spiritual writers teach that Satan does not like to be humiliated, and has no sense of embarrassment at the lies and contradictions he uses so long as they fool people.
Indeed, and we have now reached the point in Ireland when the majority, likewise, feel no embarrassment at going along with such contradictions. But where does that leave us as a society?
It was also the year of the World Meeting of Families (WMF), an event directly related to the issue of contraception because of the destructive effect contraception has on the family.
It was the year of the canonisation of Pope Paul VI, the author of the encyclical. It was also the year of the death of Fr James Good who kicked up a lot of dust against the encyclical.
And it was the year of the legalising of free-for-all abortion in Ireland, something directly related to contraception, because it is seen as back-up for failed contraception.
Earlier we had Ireland re-defining the family with the referendum on same sex “marriage”.
This type of relationship tries to give legitimacy to a kind of behaviour which sees sex as having no reference to life, only to pleasure, which is another way of describing what contraception is all about.
Blasphemy
Then, to end the year, a majority said ok to blasphemy, the mockery of God; which takes us to the root motive of the former issues: to get rid of God altogether.
I had expected that at the WMF the wisdom of Humanae Vitae would have been celebrated and put before people afresh; that it would have been one a central theme of the meeting and of the pope’s visit.
No such thing happened. Instead clerical child abuse was made central.
Watching the event as an outsider – I’m out of Ireland most of the year – one would think that this was the only problem at present in Ireland, that it was still rampant and that the bishops had done nothing about it to date, something utterly false.
The aim seems to have been to humiliate the pope on the matter and to nudge him to fire most of the bishops, on the assumption that they must have known about what was going on and did nothing.
This account
Just who fed the pope with this account of the situation in Ireland is something I would like to know.
Then came the canonisation of Pope Paul – a man who was made to suffer greatly for taking a stand on the evil of contraception, being betrayed by whole conferences of bishops in some countries and by many theologians and priests.
I was hoping that the event would be the signal for a new initiative to get the present generation of clergy to row in behind him and take up the cause of marital chastity, and to promote it afresh.
But, so far, nothing of the sort has happened, even though we have had 50 years to see the destructive effects of contraception, morally, socially and medically.
Despite those effects, policy in the West at many levels of Church and State seems to be to keep going on the same path of self-destruction.
If there was ever an example of the ostrich with his head in the sand this is one.
Why the train has left the station
I once heard a priest on local radio say that as for Humane Vitae, “the train has left the station on that.”
He meant that we should take it as settled that artificial contraception is now the order of the day because so many people practise it.
It is the old argument “They are all doing it so that must make it right for me too.”
I would like to know how often this priest had preached on the wrong of contraception in all his forty plus years in ministry.
If seldom or never, then it is easy to see why the train has left the station - with a lot of duped Catholics on board.
Happy with contradictions
If a good man finds that he has contradicted himself, perhaps inadvertently, he is embarrassed. He feels he has deceived people and is ashamed.
Not so with those who govern us, it seems, or those who go along with their policies. Child abuse is declared a great evil but abortion, outright killing, is declared to be a right.
There is absolute freedom of choice for women who want abortion but no freedom for those who have a conscientious objection.
People condemn the Nazi’s for what they did in Auschwitz and then legalise the same themselves. They cheer the pope when he comes to visit them and then, when he is gone, they give the green light to blasphemy.
Spiritual writers teach that Satan does not like to be humiliated, and has no sense of embarrassment at the lies and contradictions he uses so long as they fool people.
Indeed, and we have now reached the point in Ireland when the majority, likewise, feel no embarrassment at going along with such contradictions. But where does that leave us as a society?