Marriage is the place for mercy

Last summer the population of the Philippines reached 100 million. It already had one of the highest birth rates in the world and also suffers an appalling degree of poverty. In December 2012, against the wishes of the Catholic bishops in the Philippines but supported by the majority of the almost wholly Catholic population, the Government brought in a law to promote birth control including the use of contraceptives. This is the context in which Pope Francis spoke forcefully in favour of the 1968 papal encyclical Humanae Vitae, insisting that sexual relations between man and wife must be “open to life”. His address in Manila may well mark his settled and considered reply to those in the Church who want the teaching on contraception revised, and at first glance it looked like an uncompromising “No”.

Later, in exchanges with the press on the aircraft back to Rome, he explained that he thought it “simplistic” to argue that the birth of “so many children” was a cause of poverty, which rather lay in an unjust economic system. But he added it was not incumbent on Catholic married couples to behave like “rabbits”. Three children was about right, he felt. And couples had methods approved by the Church that they could use, in order to behave “responsibly”.

He also said, however, that his main message was against “neo-Malthusianism” – the discredited nineteenth-century theory that population growth, unless checked, would inevitably lead to starvation. And he repeated what he said was the message of Pope Paul VI, that in dealing with couples who had difficulties living up to church teaching, confessors should be merciful, compassionate, and understanding. This is very much in line with one of his favourite themes: that the Church must show God’s mercy to those who fall short of its ideals.

Perhaps Pope Francis is saying that this is what he believed Pope Paul really meant. But it is not the plain meaning of the text. Humanae Vitae insists that true Christian charity is shown by insisting on church teaching to the letter. Nor, the encyclical said, can the intention to be “open to life” be expressed by a general willingness to have children – up to three or even beyond – while using reliable methods to space them responsibly. The obvious question is what happens if natural birth control methods fail, as they sometimes do, or if the couple can only be together during the time the wife is fertile. What if they already have the papally approved three, and cannot afford more? What if the mother’s health is broken?

All of which raises another question. Why in such cases would the use of contraception – for the good of the marriage – not be merciful? Perhaps that was what Pope Francis was trying to imply, claiming it was in accordance with what Paul VI intended. If so, then this does constitute a revision of church teaching. For the distinctive feature of Humanae Vitae was not so much its reassertion of the existing disapproval of contraception, but that it did so in the framework of a theory of natural law that allowed no exceptions, even in extreme cases. It was, quite literally, merciless. Which nobody could say of Pope Francis.