DECISION ON THE PILL REASONS FOR DELAY IN POPE’S DECISION ANALYSED

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31586, 25 January 1968, Page 10

DECISION ON THE PILL REASONS FOR DELAY IN POPE’S DECISION ANALYSED

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BRIAN JOHNS.

in the "Sydney Morning Herald")

< Reprinted by arrangement)

Will he or won’t he? Rome’s theologians and Vatican watchers still wait anxiously for a statement by Pope Paul on the deepest of all the Catholic Church s problems—the pill.

Mind you, none are more anxious th; n the Catholic wife using the rhythm method who waits each month to see if her period arrives. So much has been said and written about the pill that the two fundamental problems have been obscured: the tremendous human suffering caused by the Church’s continued state of irresolution and the threat, or the challenge, the whole issue poses to the Church. Threat or challenge? All theologians realise that in endorsing or rejecting the pill even more is involved for the Church than a decision about birth-control. Those who want no change in the Church's opposition to the pill claim that if the Church repudiates its traditional teaching, its authority will be utterly discredited and the centrifugal forces in the thought and decision-making of the Church, which were released by Vatican 11, will be accelerated to the point here it will be fragmented. Corroded From Within On the other hand, those pressing for a favourable decision by the Pope on the pill say that, unless it is made, the Church's moral force will be corroded from within by a general rejection by Catholics of any papal prohibition, and corroded from without by people increasingly regarding the Church as irrelevant in today’s situation. Those in Rome absorbed in the problem seem to be agreed on one thing—they want to see an end to papal statements which are so vague that they can be taken • ty and all ways. This is perhaps why Rome is caught with rumours that Pope Paul is about to make an authoritative statement on the issue. In recent weeks, the existence of a new “supercommission" of 12 experts advising the Pope on the pill has become known. In spite of official denials of its existence, some former members of the original commission (established in 1964, but split and handed the Pope two contradictory reports after two years of deliberation) are convinced that the new “super-body” has been engaged in intense discussion in the last few months. Some in Rome firmly be-1 lieve that a document was prepared for a papal pronouncement in November. When that month passed they admit that they were equally sure that he would speak on December 22, when he replied to the Christmas greetings of ( the Roman Curia, or in his radio address, “Urbi et Orbi.” At the time, the Pope was recovering from his illness. The view was put that any address should wait until he was fully well so that none could suggest it was the statement of a sick man. Pressure From Laity It is also true that the Pope had reacted badly to the attempt by the World Congress of the Laity in October to put pressure on him to make a decision quickly

which would leave the choice of the means of birth-control to individual conscience. Advisors persuaded him to drop his intention of reprimanding the delegates in a personal address, but the congress resolution did provoke a conservative reaction and strengthened the position of the conservatives close to the Pope. Who are the Pope's advisers? Those closest to him [do tend to be conservatives, land they are mainly those I who supported the minority I hard-line report from the comI mission. There is the Spanish Jesuit, Father Zalba, a short, ascetic theologian in the old tradition, a man in his sixties who is one of the professors of

moral theology at the most influential ecclesiastical university in Rome, the Jesuit-run Gregorian; a Dutch moral theologian, Father Jan Visser, who is rector of St Alphonsus College. Rome; and Monsignor Lambruschini, an affable, warm Roman professor of theology at the Lateran University for secular clergy, who was one of the first theologians to approve frankly the use of the pill by a woman in danger of rape—for nuns at the time of the Congo troubles. Among the progressives with access to the Pope is Father Joseph Fuch, another professor of moral theology at (he Gregoriah. He was one of those who changed after great anguish from the conservative to the liberal position in the course of the com•mission deliberations—as so many others did. Another whose views are watched closely is Father Perico, S.J., whose article in the November issue of the most influential Jesuit magazine, “La Civilta Cattolica," was widely regarded as preparing the way for an announcement which could approve an anovulant pill. Personal Adviser | But the closest of all to the I papal power centre is Bishop Charles Colombo, the Pope’s personal theological adviser. He is Rector of the Theological Faculty of the Catholic University of Milan and has the reputation of being one of Italy’s best dogmatic theologians. When he spoke during the Council, bishops were not sure whether he was giving! his own idea or the Pope’s. Bishop Colombo is a ■ moderate who is always inclined to a centre position. He was a member of the commission, but was one of those most disappointed with its all-or-nothing conclusions.

I For the Pope himself nothing could have been worse than being presented with the two extreme positions by the commission in 1966 the majority report, which decided that contraception is not necessarily a violation of, nature, completely contradicted traditional teaching (the finding, incidentally, echoes the Anglican view reached at the Lambeth conference of 1930) and the minority report!

I just as adamantly upheld the I doctrinal status quo. If he follows the majority view, the Pope will be specifically rejecting positions firmly held by two of his three predecessors, Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII (Pope John contented himself with very circumscribed statements on birth-control). Both Pius XI and Pius XII held that the primary purpose of marriage was not to make love, but to make babies. But Pius XII went even further in condemnation of birth-control than Pius XI. A Personal Twist And there is a painful personal twist in Pope Paul’s dilemma—his close and complex relationship with Pius XII, whose cause for beatification he himself introduced (many will wonder if Pius Xll’s view "is rejected, how a man whose position has caused so much personal suffering and confusion could be a saint?). There are efforts for a position between the extremes of the commission reports to be brought before the Pope. This case provides theological backing for the requests of many —some believe the majority—of the bishops who attended the Rome synod in October The bishops wanted the Pope to reaffirm the ban on contraception, and so to retain the general bias of the Pius XI position, but to concede lawful doubt about anovulants, arJ [therefore to suspend Pius iXll's ban on anovulants in [September. 1958. The theological arguments [ for the middle position are | complex and sophisticated, i but they amount to drawing a (clear dividing line between (contraception and the regulation of fertility. It is claimed ( that the periodic inhibition of ovluation by the use of the anovulant pill is acceptable on the same basis as the safe period. Equality Of Sexes 1 The argument is regarded las a long overdue recognition |of the physiological equality (of man and woman in repro- [ duction, and an end to the [ state of affairs in which the | Church’s laws on marriage are [based on archaic biology. j The difficulty inherent in I the present official theology is | that ever since the discovery | of the ovary and of ovulation I in the last century the Church I has continued to treat each act of intercourse as though a child should be conceived. (Yet, of course, it has long been known that the woman lin most acts of intercourse is incapable of conceiving—and for natural causes. (It is true that since the (1930 s the Church has allowed the safe period, which was formally approved by Pius XII, but many believe the Church has never really justified the exception.) i And there have been other I illogical aspects flowing from the Church’s insistence that (the primary purpose of marriage is procreation. Why has the Church always allowed women who have had their menopause to marry? Again, there is a certain curiousness in an appeal to Rome in the mid-thirties by German bishops who asked for guidance on what they should do about those men who. sterilised by a double vasectomy by the Nazis, wanted to marry. They were granted permission. But as late as October 25, 1945. the Roman authority responsible for deciding marriage cases treated vasectomised males as impotent—and therefore unable to marry legitimately.

The Pope has not yet made his long-awaited announcement on the Catholic Church’s attitude to the contraceptive pill. In this article Brian Johns, of the “Sydney Morning Herald” staff, who has just returned front Rome, analyses the reasons for the delay and the tremendous pressures on Pope Paul from both the conservative and radical forces in the Church.