Now being almost 81, I am one of a diminishing number of Catholics who have perhaps known that the 1960s Pontifical Commission had appointed to it a Historical Consultant – John T. Noonan.
He wrote a book Contraception: A History of its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists. It is a tome of some 530 pages, which reading both the submissions of the Majority and Minority of the theologians on that Commission, (so kindly published by The Tablet) suggests that none of them had read this book in full.
It needs reading now more than ever because it shows that traditional teaching (held up as a reason for “No Change”), was in fact based on erroneous physiology and psychology.
Until 1845 when the ovum was discovered, sperm was thought to contain the whole embryo, so coitus interruptus, the most common form of contraception, was seen as homicide. That intercourse has a unitive, or marital function, as well as a procreative one was only admitted by Vatican II.
Psychologically it was presumed that as animals only copulate to produce young, human beings do it far more frequently because we are moved by lust resultant upon the Fall, rather than that because we are human it is also an act of love.
Not knowing this, previous generations of theologians stated that all intercourse which was not procreative in intention or form was mortal or venial sin.
Noonan’s book reveals that down the ages, fierce arguments over each of these sins gradually ended in an admission of innocence. The most striking of these is perhaps intercourse in pregnancy, which was dubbed mortal sin till the 16th century, so nine months’ continence was ruthlessly demanded of any pregnant wife.
One could say that the most ferocious attacks on the conjugal (i.e. joining) union of marriage down the ages have come from the Celibate Magisterium.
I have been circulating photocopies from Noonan round to various bishops and theologians, but have received no reply. Constant teaching is based on the dictum “sex is for procreation” so today contraception is banned because it removes the fertility from the act.
If the 80 per cent of Catholics who disagree with the Church were to verbalise their objection, I believe it would be: intercourse is intrinsic to the relationship of marriage, so any denial of it to married couples (as in natural family planning) is an unjust and immoral attack on that relationship.
Will this point be raised in the Synod? And are the married couples stated to be participating in it, carefully selected because they happily use natural family planning?
Elizabeth Price, Linton, Nr Maidstone, Kent
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