Finding the Challenges and Joys of Paul VI's Teaching on the Family

By Maria Wiering

Looking back, I’m sure the moment was awkward.

My now-husband and I were on our second date: evening coffee at a laid-back café in St. Paul, Minnesota. We had been friends for years, and I wanted to investigate potential roadblocks as we moved from friendship to something more.

So, I asked, with the coolness of the Grand Inquisitor: did he agree with the Church’s teaching on contraception?

Graciously, my husband has no recollection of this moment. I recall him looking slightly uncomfortable, but he affirmed that yes, he trusted the Church.

Whew, I thought, probably searching for the next conversation non-starter.

The truth is, if he had said no, it probably would have been a deal breaker. I felt strongly about avoiding contraception, and realized I needed a like-minded spouse. The question wasn’t like asking his feelings on vegetarianism, or another lifestyle preference, even one with ethical components. I was asking him, essentially, if he was willing to surrender decisions about our family size – and therefore our personal plans and aspirations – to God’s providence.

Admittedly, it was a big ask.

In Humane Vitae, the 1968 encyclical affirming the Church’s teaching on birth control, one gets the impression Pope Paul VI also knew he was putting in a steep order. He acknowledged that abiding by the Church’s teaching could be a burden for some couples, and told them to focus on eternal life – not a card one usually has to play if the immediate upside of something is blatantly obvious. However, the encyclical is incredibly pro-woman, pro-child and pro-family, which is what has convinced me, and many others, to shape our lives around it.

After Paul VI explained contraception was an unacceptable means to prevent births, he acknowledged that couples who wished to avoid pregnancy must practice self-discipline. He promised it would bear fruit: “It fosters in husband and wife thoughtfulness and loving consideration for one another. It helps them to repel inordinate self-love, which is the opposite of charity. It arouses in them a consciousness of their responsibilities.” And, he added, it’s a good example for their kids, too.

By contrast, he pointed to the potential characteristics of a world rife with contraception use, including marital infidelity; a “general lowering of moral standards”; disrespect of women, making them “mere instruments of selfish enjoyment”; and governmental endorsement (imposition even) of artificial contraception.

Looking around today, it’s hard to argue he wasn’t right.

In March, Pope Francis said Pope Paul VI’s “genius was prophetic.” He cautioned, however, that the encyclical should be pastorally applied with great mercy – something Paul VI called for as well.

As Catholics, we often think of this mercy being expressed in the confessional, but it should be an attitude we in the pews embrace as well. We Natural Family Planning promoters must avoid a better-than-thou air of haughtiness. A certain sense of pride is understandable, given our minority status and the kind of dedication it requires to practice it. NFP is, however, only a tool to space births, not the marital end game. A merciful attitude towards Catholics who struggle to keep this teaching, instead of an us-and-them approach, would serve all lay Catholics well.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t widely extol the benefits of NFP. I love understanding how my body works, and that my husband understands it as well. It also appeals to my crunchy, organic-produce-loving self, as it requires thought and time, but nothing artificial – and potentially harmful – in my body. It also has helped numerous friends pinpoint fertility problems and eventually become pregnant.

I’ve been married – and a mom – long enough to know that this vocation does entail burdens, some that the girl at the coffee shop six years ago couldn’t have anticipated. Those burdens, however, deepen my admiration of my husband and appreciation for my son, and are lightened by the quiet comfort and joy of cooperating with God’s plan for our family.

Maria Wiering is a staff writer at the "Catholic Review," newspaper of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. USCCB offers resources for finding a national NFP provider and local NFP classes.

To Accommodate Caesar or to Follow Conscience

Senior Judge John L. Kane of the District Court for the District of Colorado did his Solomon-like duty July 27. The Carter appointee issued an injunction against the government’s Affordable Care Act mandate that forces employers to pay for contraceptives, including abortion-causing drugs, and female sterilization for employees.

The mandate he’s forestalled in Newland v. Sebelius comes from Health and Human Services’ preventive services mandate under the Affordable Care Act. It went into effect August 1.

The employer, Denver-based Hercules Industries, makes heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning parts. It is owned by four Catholic siblings, the Newlands, who run their business according to Catholic principles, even if it might affect the bottom line. The company is self-insured and offers a generous health plan but doesn’t fund contraceptives, sterilization and abortion. The Newlands sued HHS for violating their First Amendment rights, which guarantee free expression of religion, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (known as RFRA).

The judge weighed two rights: the individuals’ claim that the HHS mandate would violate their religious beliefs and the government’s claim that it had to do so in order to meet the public good. He then looked at the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It states that the government may not “substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.” RFRA adds that the government may only justify a substantial burden of the free exercise of religion if the challenged law “(1) is in furtherance of government interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling government interest.”

Judge Kane’s ruling found that the government’s case for compelling government interest was undermined by the fact that it already has offered exemptions to 190 million health plan participants already.

He also noted the government has a greater interest in upholding the individuals’ free exercise rights than in the government’s claims that it was acting to improve health care for women and children.

           

Could there be another way to make the government happy? The plaintiffs offered a solution that would not violate their religious freedom and suggested “government provision of free birth control,” even though they would not recommend this as a matter of public policy.  They further pointed out that the government already provides free contraception to some women, so their suggestion should not be seen as infeasible by the government.

In some ways this is a small victory, for the injunction stands only until the court case is decided. It affects but one company. It is huge, however, because it is the first HHS mandate case to consider religious freedom issues, and religious freedom won. Caesar may figure out a way to rain down contraceptives from the clouds, but in no way should the government order religious groups and individuals to violate their consciences and underwrite the mandate that opposes the clear teaching of their church.

President Obama: Render Unto God the Things that Are God’s

Jesus is often quoted for his saying to “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” The rest of the quote could be a message to the Obama Administration: “Render unto God the things that are God’s.”

The current tensions over religious freedom come down to a simple fact: the First Amendment guarantees free exercise of religion. That includes the right of Catholic and other religious institutions to define and carry out their ministry.

An Obama regulation that compels virtually all employers to provide sterilization and contraceptives, including abortion-causing drugs, to employees without co-pay, has a religious exemption. But the exemption is so narrow that Jesus himself wouldn’t qualify. Religious ministries qualify for the exemption only if the people providing the service are Catholic, the ones being served are Catholic, and the service itself comes packaged with religious instruction.

So much for hospital ministry. Will “Where does it hurt?” have to be replaced with “Where were you baptized?” At the soup kitchen will “Are you hungry?” be replaced with “Are you Catholic?” Will we have to teach the hungry the Apostle’s Creed before we feed them?

It is the church, not Caesar, that defines ministry. We Catholics are called to serve others because we’re Catholic, not because they are. We help others because of their need, not their creed. For the government to hold fast to its new definition of ministry, one crafted by the American Civil Liberties Union, reflects deafness to the Constitution that is unbecoming to the man sworn to defend it.

There has been some talk of accommodation, whereby (it is claimed) some Catholic institutions would not have to pay for services that violate their religious beliefs. Apparently, their insurance companies would pay for the services instead. One doesn’t have to be a cynic to question where the money to pay for those services will come from, as the only pool of available funds seems to be the premiums subsidized by the objecting religious institutions. And the government’s problematic definition of religious ministry still remains. There also is the question of what self-insured Catholic organizations are supposed to do. What good does it do to say the dirty work will be done by the insurer rather than the employer, if they are one and the same?

The Administration’s intrusive decision about what does and does not constitute religious ministry should make every American pause. What falls after freedom of religion? Freedom of the press? Will Caesar tell you what you have to print or air?

Days before President Obama reaffirmed his commitment to the miserly religious exemption in his Administration’s regulation; the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision pertinent to religious freedom. In the Hosanna-Tabor case, the Court upheld 9-0 the right of a Lutheran Church to decide who its ministers are. The Obama Administration had taken the opposite, and losing, side, arguing that the church had no more right of religious liberty than a secular organization. One would have expected the Court’s resounding rejection of that argument to bring the Administration’s eyes into focus on the religious liberty question. Clearly it did not.

The Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution makes freedom of religion the “First Freedom.” The Founding Fathers stressed that this freedom was sacred. George Washington in 1789 wrote to an annual meeting of Quakers that “The conscientious scruples of all men should be treated with great delicacy and tenderness and it is my wish and desire, that the laws may always be extremely accommodated to them.”

Certainly our government, wise as it is, can’t be expected (and shouldn’t purport) to know everything. It might well ease its burdens by leaving some things to the Almighty and rendering unto God the things that are God’s.