Issues that won't go away

Cardinal John Heenan, Archbishop of Westminster at the time of the publication of Humanae Vitae 40 years ago this summer, described the crisis of authority it triggered as "the greatest shock the Church has suffered since the Reformation". With hindsight that was an exaggeration, though the encyclical brought about a profound change in the way Catholics saw the Church. Remarks a week ago by Pope Benedict XVI offer a less dramatic perspective on Humanae Vitae's legacy, as much an understatement as the late cardinal's were the opposite. The Pope admitted the encyclical was a "sign of contradiction" that "caused much debate", linking it with the turbulence of the time - this was the year of student unrest, 1968. But "in the light of new scientific discoveries, its teaching is becoming more current and is provoking reflection", the Pope said. The encyclical offered lasting fundamental principles on marriage and procreation. "That which was true yesterday, remains true even today."

One consequence of Humanae Vitae was that the honest discussion of sexual ethics in the Catholic Church became extremely difficult, and the "much debate" Pope Benedict referred to happened despite the intense efforts of the authorities to stop it. That was a sign of contradiction indeed. Any honest reflection provoked by Humanae Vitae would have to take account of the fact that very large numbers of Catholics, priests as well as laity, did not then, and do not now, think the encyclical's main conclusion - that the use of artificial contraception is invariably a grave wrong - was the correct one. And that is not just because the Church is full of sinners. Many believe it is because the sensus fidelium in the Catholic Church is guided by the Holy Spirit. If so, it is a theological fact that sooner or later the authorities in the Church will have to come to terms with.

Humanae Vitae was nevertheless a development of doctrine in the light of new understandings of human sexuality, and spoke about married love more realistically than its papal predecessor Casti Cannubi, issued by Pope Pius XI in 1930. The tragedy is that the development stopped there. The same sense of stalemate arises in connection with the issue of divorce and remarriage in the Church, where the inadequacy of the existing response has led countless divorced Catholics either to lapse from regular observance or to return to the reception of Holy Communion, although the rules appear specifically to forbid them from doing so. That habit of treating the promptings of conscience as more important than church rulings - not necessarily a bad thing in itself - surely dates from 1968. Indeed, contraception and Communion for those in "irregular" marriages were the two issues raised on behalf of the bishops of England and Wales as long ago as the 1980 synod on the family in Rome, where the urgent pleas for "development" in doctrine and practice made by Archbishop Derek Worlock and Cardinal Basil Hume fell on deaf ears. That is a long time to let things drift, and the interval has done the Church no favours as falling Mass attendance figures bear witness.

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, who is said to have the ear of the Pope, has now raised the possibility of a new approach to divorce and irregular marriages in the Church. While denying that he wanted a "quick cure by means of a sacramental sticking plaster", he said evidence of grieving and remorse could lead to an honest appraisal, at diocesan level, that a divorced and remarried Catholic could resume receiving Holy Communion. That is a step forward. Like contraception, this is not an issue that will go away by being ignored. Sooner or later it, too, will have to be addressed.

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