Doctrine Has not Changed; you just have to work harder for it.

The controversial encyclical Humanae Vitae and Karol Wojtyla’s groundbreaking book Love and Responsibility share a relationship that highlights how the Church works as a teaching body rather than as an executive dictatorship.  There are three areas of overlap between these two works I would like to focus on today: authorship, approach, and area of focus in presenting the Church’s timeless teaching on marriage.

The first area of overlap is some minor level of shared authorship of the two documents.  It is true: both Wojtyla and Paul VI owe a debt to the documents of the Second Vatican Council.  However, this is not the shared authorship I wish to highlight.  Contrary to popular belief, Paul VI was not an author who went solo against the prevailing sense of the Church.  Rather, he showcased the truly synodal nature of the Church by expanding the already existing body tasked with examining marriage as a Sacrament, as well as issuing a request for comment and suggestion to approximately 200 bishops.  It is not his fault that barely a fraction of those bishops responded for comment, and of those that responded only 7 made comments in keeping with Catholic doctrine.  One of these 7 was, as you could guess, Wojtyla.  Now, though it is unclear as to how much influence Wojtyla had on the finished document, the few number of bishops responding with orthodox suggestions almost certainly allowed Paul VI some clarity in how Vatican II could properly be applied to Church life.  Later on, Love and Responsibility would take up this examination right where Humanae Vitae left off.  And so, our first point of overlap is this: some limited shared authorship.

Our second area of overlap is the approach these two documents take in communicating their subject matter to the Faithful.  One pitfall of being Catholic is that we have a tendency to become theologically lazy as a body of Faith.  Meaning: we have an infallible magisterium, so it seems to stand to reason that they can do our thinking, understanding, and studying of Church theological doctrines for us.  All we would then have to do is listen and trust (have faith) to the magisterium, and do what they tell us to do.  And, to be fair, this was the attitude of magisterium and laity alike for a very long time.  And yet that is not how the Church operates, and was never intended to operate.  The Church exists for Man, that Man might know Christ which simultaneously reveals Man to himself, too.  And Man is a rational creature.  So, rather than adopting a position of issuing decrees which then must be simply accepted and lived by like a laundry list of acceptable actions, both Paul VI and Wojtyla take the position of teacher.  They present the truths of the Faith surrounding marriage in a way that explains - not decrees - Church teaching.  The benefit of this is that it engages the intellect of the Faithful, demands of them a higher standard and participation of doctrine, and encourages them to make this doctrine their own.  The danger, of course, is that presenting doctrine in such a way does allow for misunderstanding, malicious and licentious interpretations, and permissive attitudes.  Neither approach is without danger, neither is without its benefits.  In any case, here we have our second point of overlap: instructional, not dictated, presentation of Church teaching.

The third area of overlap between Humanae Vitae and Love and Responsibility is the humanist element of marriage.  Relying on Vatican II’s assertion that responsible parenthood is an essential element of marriage, both Paul VI and Wojtyla expand the Church’s teaching on the three ends of marriage beyond a hyper-focus on simply the primary end.  Neither document claims that procreation is not the primary end of marriage.  On the contrary; both claim explicitly that procreation is the primary end of marriage, that there is a hierarchy of the ends of marriage, and that the only permissible marital act is one which acknowledges and respects this primary end.  However, just as infallible magisterium does not mean the Faithful do not have to actively participate and understand the Church’s doctrines themselves, so too does having a primary end of marriage not then negate or delegitimize the other two ends.  To this end, both HV and LaR focus on returning the personhood to marriage, and explore how the second end of marriage (edification of the spouses) can relate to the first end (procreation) without devolving into whatever those spouses wish it to be in the name of “edification.”

There is one last area of overlap which seems appropriate to end this short examination with: controversy.  Both JPII and Paul VI are held with some controversy, remarkably by both liberal and conservative Catholics.  Liberals are furious that Paul VI went against the sexual revolution and upheld the Church’s teachings; conservatives are mad that he dealt with personhood within marriage and didn’t merely talk about procreation.  It muddies the water, they would say.  In a similar fashion, conservatives are furious that JPII talked about personhood, all three ends of marriage in a coherent and cohesive way, and sought to return to a human-participation in the Church model.  Liberals, on the other hand, cannot understand or accept JPII’s focus on personhood and adherence to timeless Church doctrine.  But controversy breeds conversation, which engages the intellect and demands understanding.  And so, in true Christ-like fashion, both JPII and Paul VI fulfill their ends of instructing the faithful by being disliked by all.  May we each be as influential as these.