100 promises and counting...

In 1967, Pope Paul IV gave us his historic encyclical Populorum Progressio. Forty years later, 2007, we commemorated the 40th anniversary of this great encyclical. Populorum Progressio was translated in to 'plain english', the LiveSimply challenge was made and became the theme for three celebrations of National Youth Sunday (2006, 2007 and 2008). All over the country in schools and youth retreat centres young people have been learning to live simply.

In 1968, Pope Paul IV gave us his historic encyclical Humanae Vitae... Shhhhh. Forty years later, 2008. Nothing. The Bishops of England and Wales are silent. No youth organisations have been founded, not even a press release acknowledging the event. Nada. Nill. Not a sausage.

A Response...

As part of LiveSimply, young people have been invited to make a promise to change their lives in response the Populorum Progressio and the challenge to live simply. At the LiveSimply Promises website, hundreds of young people have made promises to turn off the light, eat fairtrade chocolate and not drop litter etc.

Now, over a hundred people believe that the time has come to make a new promise. On the 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae we are making a promise to LiveChastely.

So far...

The response on the blogs has been great. Catholic Dads, Generations for Life, Lunch Break, Tim Finigan, Mullier Fortis, Countercultural Father, Joanna Bogle, Torch of The Faith, Laodicea and many others. Thanks to you all. The promise was also mentioned by Anne Arco in the Catholic Herald and I have also been contacted by a journalist for the Catholic Times. Mhari Dunlop (of xt3 fame) founded a facebook group which bizarrely has more members than have actually signed the promise (such is the nature of facebook).

Over a hundred people have now signed, the hundredth being our parish priest Fr William Massie. The hundred and first... did not want to give their name. One in five promise signers have hidden their names and a few of them went out of their way to email me and tell me why... that's right: They work for the Church.

What now?

We are well on target for 1000 people by the 41st anniversary of Humanae Vitae. If we carry on at the current rate we will easily make it. But. We need to keep up the momentum...

If you have not yet signed the promise... Sign the promise! Do it now! Click here and fill in the form! Remember: Chastity is not celibacy. Married people can be chaste too - Chastity means being in control of your own sexuality. It means not having an affair or using pr0n.

If you have a blog... Please mention the promise on your blog. If you have already mentioned it, the 100 promise milestone is a fantastic excuse to mention it again! It's a good idea to link directly to the promise page: http://promise.livesimply.org.uk/LiveChastely so that people don't get distracted reading this page. Also, you might like to put one of our banners in a prominent place on your blog.

Everybody... Blogs are great, but (sadly) many of our Catholic friends don't read blogs. All of us know people who would gladly make the promise and support a thing like this but who simply won't see it on a blog. Send them an email... personal invites work best. Don't forget to mention it to people you know at Church... did you see that LiveChastely thing? Finally, if you are a priest, you could put the promise on your newsletter... http://promise.livesimply.org.uk/LiveChastely

Future Plans?

Yeah... once we hit a good number (500?) I'm thinking of writing an individual letter to each and every Bishop in England and Wales inviting them to sign the promise. That will be interesting. But we need you to get us there...

from Orbis Catholicus Those Mysterious Priests
c. 1974 By Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

"The press and sometimes theologians said that the Holy Father should never have issued the letter because it divided the Church. Of course it divided the Church as Elijah divided those who had to choose either Baal or God; it divided the Church as the Lord divided it: 'He that gathers not with Me, scatters.' Certainly, it thinned the ranks of the Church just as God's order to Gideon, trimmed his army from 30,000 to 10,000 and from 10,000 to 300 to do battle with an army of about fifty thousand. Humanae Vitae, quite apart from its teaching, is perhaps the most important Church document in modern times. It enabled the Church to know how many would follow the flesh instead of the spirit."

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In other news, they say that the sequel to Into Great Silence is being filmed. It's about the bishops commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae.

It's been Forty Years since Populorum Progressio.

The 'Live Simply' challenge will also mark forty years since the publication of Pope Paul VI's Populorum Progressio (the Development of Peoples). A number of organisations, including Pax Christi and Progressio, are planning a series of events and challenges on themes of justice.

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Livesimply is inspired by Populorum Progressio, the 1967 encyclical from Paul VI.

This year's National Youth Sunday is the third one in a row with a LiveSimply theme.

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Third one... in a row... I think it's fair to say we've covered the LiveSimply theme.

Populorum Progressio was released in 1967 and it was only right and proper that we mark the release of such a significant encyclical. Populorum Progressio itself refers to Rerum Novarum (by Leo XIII). Important encyclicals should be remembered.

But 2007 is forty years since 1967. We heard about that anniversary in 2006 (marking the 'upcoming anniversary') and in 2007 itself.

It's now 2008 - surely the time has come to mark the fortieth anniversary of another important encyclial?

LiveChastely anyone?

Didn't think so... Silence. Of. Dissent.

Here's an idea... the LiveSimply people have a system on their site where you can make a promise to LiveSimply. The most popular promise on there at the moment is a promise to sign a seedpacket and send it to your MP. That promise currently has twenty-two votes - I reckon we can beat that.

I've made a promise on the site to LiveChastely, along with a clear message that I think the time has come to mark the anniversary of Humanae Vitae. Don't be part of the silence - join me in singing this promise and make it clear to the powers that be that those who want these things to be taken seriously are not one or two nutters with blogs, but hundreds and hundreds of people.

Click here to leave your promise.

You can leave a comment of your own over there, if you like and for heaven's sake, if you have one, put this on your blog! I've set the target to 1000 people by the 41st anniversary of Humanae Vitae. Don't lets leave me looking like an over-optimistic twerp.

Don't just be the best you can be! Encourage others to do the same!

It's more important than one of those stupid blog awards...

(Everybody feel free to use my faux-logo above...)

In a recent issue of The Tablet there is a 'Tablet Special' on 'Humanae Vitae 40 years on'. I haven't read it because I can't read it online for free but I am reliable informed that it contains an article which describes the reaction of the English Bishops to Humanae Vitae as "a deafening silence of dissent".

The plan was simple, don't publicly disagree with the encyclical, but don't teach it either. Just be silent on it.

Fr Massie took a brave stand against that in his homily today. He said that following the teaching of the Church, following Peter, could at times feel like walking on water. But that Jesus will be there to hold us when we begin to sink.

Jesus called out to them, saying, ‘Courage! It is I! Do not be afraid.’ It was Peter who answered. ‘Lord,’ he said ‘if it is you, tell me to come to you across the water.’ ‘Come’ said Jesus. Then Peter got out of the boat and started walking towards Jesus across the water, but as soon as he felt the force of the wind, he took fright and began to sink. ‘Lord! Save me!’ he cried. Jesus put out his hand at once and held him. ‘Man of little faith,’ he said ‘why did you doubt?’

I've already blogged a few exerpts from Humanae Vitae and the story of Cardinal James Francis Stafford (James Francis... that's good name).

Now I notice that LifeSiteNews have unearthed the letter that was sent by Amleto Giovanni Cardinal Cicognani to Bishops around the world with the pre-release copy of Humanae Vitae...

Your Excellency,

When directing me to transmit to Your Excellency the enclosed document, publication of which is imminent, His Holiness strongly recommended that I draw your attention to its importance, and to the necessity of a concerted effort on the part of the entire Catholic Episcopate, in order that the doctrine it contains be explained with care in full to the Christian people, and in order that it be courageously put into practice by all as, thanks be to God, it already is by many.

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The Holy Father knows full well the bitterness that this reply may cause many married persons who were expecting a different solution for their difficulties.

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And now He turns to His Brothers, the Bishops of the Catholic world, asking them to stand beside Him more firmly than ever in this circumstance, and to help Him present this delicate point of the Church's teaching to the Christian people, to explain and justify its profound reasons. The Pope counts upon the attachment of His Brothers in the Episcopate to the Chair of Peter, upon their love for the Church, upon their concern for the true good of souls.

He knows, as they do, the ideas and the practices existing in modern society in this regard, and He is fully aware of the efforts which will be needed to secure an evolution of thought on this point. He knows what sacrifices - sometimes heroic sacrifices - are entailed by the application of Catholic principles in conjugal morals.

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May they strive to present this teaching in its true light, that is, to show its positive and beneficent aspect. What the Church wishes above all is to help Christian husbands and wives to perfect one another, to purify their love, to taste the happiness of a married life lived in the sight of God and in complete respect for His law.

Finally, it is necessary that both in the confessional and in the pulpit, in the press and by other means of social communication, every necessary pastoral effort be made that no ambiguity exists among the faithful or in public opinion concerning the Church's position in this serious matter. Faithful to the mandate she received to teach all nations, she puts her trust in Him who guides her, Whose will she is humbly confident of interpreting faithfully. She has no doubt that future generations will appreciate fully the importance and benefit of the service she renders to married couples, to the family, to all society, by defending this point of her doctrine without weakness.

Devotedly yours in Christ,

A.G. Card. Cicognani (Amleto Giovanni Cardinal Cicognani)

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Speaking as a future generation... (I was minus-fourteen when this document was written) I do indeed appreciate fully the importance and benefit of the service rendered to we married couples, we families and to all society, when this point of doctrine is defended without weakness.

Thank you Paul VI for taking a stand and getting it right. Thank you to all the Bishops in England who stood beside him "more firmly than ever".

Both of you.

By Cardinal James Francis Stafford

In Baltimore in early August, 1968, a few days after the encyclical’s issuance, I received an invitation by telephone from a recently ordained assistant pastor to attend a gathering of some Baltimore priests at the rectory of St. William of York parish in southwest Baltimore to discuss the encyclical. The meeting was set for Sunday evening, August 4. I agreed to come. Eventually a large number of priests were gathered in the rectory’s basement. I knew them all.

My expectations of the meeting proved unrealistic. I had hoped that we had been called together to receive copies of the encyclical and to discuss it. I was mistaken. Neither happened.

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Before our arrival, the conveners had decided that the Baltimore priests’ rejection of the papal encyclical would be published the following morning in The Baltimore Sun, one of the daily newspapers.

The Washington statement was read aloud. Then the leader asked each of us to agree to have our names attached to it. No time was allowed for discussion, reflection, or prayer. Each priest was required individually to give a verbal “yes” or “no.”

I could not sign it. My earlier letter to Cardinal Shehan came to mind. I remained convinced of the truth of my judgement and conclusions. Noting that my seat was last in the packed basement, I listened to each priest’s response, hoping for support. It didn’t materialize. Everyone agreed to sign. There were no abstentions. As the last called upon, I felt isolated. The basement became suffocating.

By now it was night. The room was charged with tension. Something epochal was taking place. It became clear that the leaders’ strategy had been carefully mapped out beforehand. It was moving along without a hitch. Their rhetorical skills were having their anticipated effect. They had planned carefully how to exert what amounted to emotional and intellectual coercion. Violence by overt manipulation was new to the Baltimore presbyterate.

The leader’s reaction to my refusal was predictable and awful. The whole process now became a grueling struggle, a terrible test, a Πειρασμος. The priest/leader, drawing upon some scatological language from his Marine Corp past in the II World War responded contemptuously to my decision. He tried to force me to change. He became visibly angry and verbally abusive. The underlying, ‘fraternal’ violence became more evident. He questioned and then derided my integrity. He taunted me to risk my ecclesiastical ‘future,’ although his reference was more anatomically specific. The abuse went on.

With surprising coherence I was eventually able to respond that the Pope’s encyclical deserved the courtesy of a reading. None of us had read it. I continued that, as a matter of fact, I agreed with and accepted the Pope’s teaching as it had been reported in the public media. That response elicited more ridicule. Otherwise there was silence. Finally, seeing that I would remain firm, the ex-Marine moved on to complete the business and adjourn the meeting. The leaders then prepared a statement for the next morning’s daily paper.

The meeting ended. I sped out of there, free but disoriented. Once outside the darkness encompassed me. We all had been subjected to a new thing in the Church, something unexpected. A pastor and several seminary professors had abused rhetoric to undermine the truth within the evangelical community. When opposed, they assumed the role of Job’s friends. Their contempt became a nightmare. In the night it seemed that God’s blind hand was reaching out to touch my face.

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Deus Caritas Est...

Married love particularly reveals its true nature and nobility when we realize that it takes its origin from God, who "is love," the Father "from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named."

Marriage, then, is far from being the effect of chance or the result of the blind evolution of natural forces. It is in reality the wise and provident institution of God the Creator, whose purpose was to effect in man His loving design. As a consequence, husband and wife, through that mutual gift of themselves, which is specific and exclusive to them alone, develop that union of two persons in which they perfect one another, cooperating with God in the generation and rearing of new lives.

The marriage of those who have been baptized is, in addition, invested with the dignity of a sacramental sign of grace, for it represents the union of Christ and His Church.

What Marriage Is...

This love is above all fully human, a compound of sense and spirit. It is not, then, merely a question of natural instinct or emotional drive. It is also, and above all, an act of the free will, whose trust is such that it is meant not only to survive the joys and sorrows of daily life, but also to grow, so that husband and wife become in a way one heart and one soul, and together attain their human fulfillment.

It is a love which is total—that very special form of personal friendship in which husband and wife generously share everything, allowing no unreasonable exceptions and not thinking solely of their own convenience. Whoever really loves his partner loves not only for what he receives, but loves that partner for the partner's own sake, content to be able to enrich the other with the gift of himself.

Married love is also faithful and exclusive of all other, and this until death. This is how husband and wife understood it on the day on which, fully aware of what they were doing, they freely vowed themselves to one another in marriage. Though this fidelity of husband and wife sometimes presents difficulties, no one has the right to assert that it is impossible; it is, on the contrary, always honorable and meritorious. The example of countless married couples proves not only that fidelity is in accord with the nature of marriage, but also that it is the source of profound and enduring happiness.

Finally, this love is fecund. It is not confined wholly to the loving interchange of husband and wife; it also contrives to go beyond this to bring new life into being. "Marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordained toward the procreation and education of children. Children are really the supreme gift of marriage and contribute in the highest degree to their parents' welfare."

What Marriage Isn't...

The Church, nevertheless, in urging men to the observance of the precepts of the natural law, which it interprets by its constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life.

This particular doctrine, often expounded by the magisterium of the Church, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act.

The reason is that the fundamental nature of the marriage act, while uniting husband and wife in the closest intimacy, also renders them capable of generating new life—and this as a result of laws written into the actual nature of man and of woman. And if each of these essential qualities, the unitive and the procreative, is preserved, the use of marriage fully retains its sense of true mutual love and its ordination to the supreme responsibility of parenthood to which man is called. We believe that our contemporaries are particularly capable of seeing that this teaching is in harmony with human reason.

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Therefore We base Our words on the first principles of a human and Christian doctrine of marriage when We are obliged once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number of children. Equally to be condemned, as the magisterium of the Church has affirmed on many occasions, is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary.

Similarly excluded is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means.

Neither is it valid to argue, as a justification for sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive, that a lesser evil is to be preferred to a greater one, or that such intercourse would merge with procreative acts of past and future to form a single entity, and so be qualified by exactly the same moral goodness as these. Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to promote a greater good," it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it —in other words, to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general. Consequently, it is a serious error to think that a whole married life of otherwise normal relations can justify sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive and so intrinsically wrong.

Natural Family Planning...

If therefore there are well-grounded reasons for spacing births, arising from the physical or psychological condition of husband or wife, or from external circumstances, the Church teaches that married people may then take advantage of the natural cycles immanent in the reproductive system and engage in marital intercourse only during those times that are infertile, thus controlling birth in a way which does not in the least offend the moral principles which We have just explained.

Neither the Church nor her doctrine is inconsistent when she considers it lawful for married people to take advantage of the infertile period but condemns as always unlawful the use of means which directly prevent conception, even when the reasons given for the later practice may appear to be upright and serious. In reality, these two cases are completely different. In the former the married couple rightly use a faculty provided them by nature. In the later they obstruct the natural development of the generative process. It cannot be denied that in each case the married couple, for acceptable reasons, are both perfectly clear in their intention to avoid children and wish to make sure that none will result. But it is equally true that it is exclusively in the former case that husband and wife are ready to abstain from intercourse during the fertile period as often as for reasonable motives the birth of another child is not desirable. And when the infertile period recurs, they use their married intimacy to express their mutual love and safeguard their fidelity toward one another. In doing this they certainly give proof of a true and authentic love.

Consequences of Contraception...

Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.

Sign of Contradiction...

It is to be anticipated that perhaps not everyone will easily accept this particular teaching. There is too much clamorous outcry against the voice of the Church, and this is intensified by modern means of communication. But it comes as no surprise to the Church that she, no less than her divine Founder, is destined to be a "sign of contradiction." She does not, because of this, evade the duty imposed on her of proclaiming humbly but firmly the entire moral law, both natural and evangelical.

Since the Church did not make either of these laws, she cannot be their arbiter—only their guardian and interpreter. It could never be right for her to declare lawful what is in fact unlawful, since that, by its very nature, is always opposed to the true good of man.

Spell It Out...

And now, beloved sons, you who are priests, you who in virtue of your sacred office act as counselors and spiritual leaders both of individual men and women and of families—We turn to you filled with great confidence. For it is your principal duty—We are speaking especially to you who teach moral theology—to spell out clearly and completely the Church's teaching on marriage.