Aw, I think you are missing Chesterton's "democracy of the dead here". The Pope did, in fact, have the consent of the Church if you were to look back at 1900 years of tradition. For 1900 years, the Church clearly taught that contraception was wrong and this demonstrates a clear consensus among Catholics. The twentieth century, is clearly an anomoly, and should not be considered the measure of the sensus fidei which preserves the deposit of the Christian faith.
"Ego te absolvo." The Catholic Route to Birth ControlThis is like arguing that the Church is wrong on it's teaching on masterbation because almost all Catholic men have masterbated at one time or that the Church is wrong on it's teaching on lying, because almot all Catholics have lied at some point.
The Church forbids contraceptive methods. But it has always been more indulgent in the confessional, not only today but also in the past. Here is what priests did in the first half of the twentieth century, in one of the most Christianized areas of Italy
ROME, September 8, 2010 – It is believed to be one of the most reliable proofs of the relentless advance of secularization: the contrast thought to have been created between Church teaching on contraception and the actual behavior of the population, including observant Catholics.
In reality, the divergence between the teaching, for example, of "Humanae Vitae" and the contraceptive practices in use among the faithful is by no means a new development in recent decades....
Article is at
"It's not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting. It's that Christianity has been found hard, and left untried." -G.K. Chesterton
The crux of this matter is not in what you are writing. It has been stated here very eloquently by Mary and others that the Pope is infallible when he expresses the mind of the Church. What this article helps to show is that the current teaching on contraception is not the mind of the Church. But we have known that all along ever since the time of the writing of Humanae Vitae. At that time the majority opinion was very much against such a teaching. Indeed the majority of the Papal Commission created by the Pope to advise him on the matter was against the teaching which ended up in the Encyclical. The Pope instead went with was is now known as the Minority Opinion. Plainly lacking the consent of the Church and being contrary to the mind of the Church the teaching in Humanae Vitae cannot claim to be an infallible expression of the truth of the Church.
The "clear teaching" that Humanae Vitae apparently depends on (I cite the apologia for it, as it doesn't cite patristics on this at all) does not include HV in that consensus, as it is a tradition which abhors sexuality (but not gender: it is rather misogynist) in general and sex in particular, and basically teaches that if weak individuals succumb to their animal urges, then the only excuse is to procreate and serve as breeders for the monastic orders-Jerome's "I praise marriage because it gives me virgins."
This distinction in the teaching that the Vatican accepted from St. Jerome and his ilk appears in 1852, long before the Lambeth Conference:
The very concept of “rhythm” was first considered by the Catholic Church in 1853. The Bishop of Amiens, France, submitted the following question to the Sacred Penitentiary:http://www.cmri.org/03-nfp.html
“Certain married couples, relying on the opinion of learned physicians, are convinced that there are several days each month in which conception cannot occur. Are those who do not use the marriage right except on such days to be disturbed, especially if they have legitimate reasons for abstaining from the conjugal act?”
On March 2, 1853, the Sacred Penitentiary (during the reign of Pope Pius IX) answered as follows:
“Those spoken of in the request are not to be disturbed, providing that they do nothing to impede conception.”
Another reference to rhythm appeared in 1880. Fr. Le Conte submitted the following questions to the Sacred Penitentiary:
“Whether married couples may have intercourse during such sterile periods without committing mortal or venial sin?”
“Whether the confessor may suggest such a procedure either to the wife who detests the onanism of her husband but cannot correct him, or to either spouse who shrinks from having numerous children?”
The response of the Sacred Penitentiary (during the reign of Pope Leo XIII), dated June 16, 1880, was:
“Married couples who use their marriage right in the aforesaid manner are not to be disturbed, and the confessor may suggest the opinion in question, cautiously, however, to those married people whom he has tried in vain by other means to dissuade from the detestable crime of onanism.”
Contrast that with Jerome, Lactantius et alia
Clement of Alexandriahttp://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/FKBCONTR.HTM
"To have coitus other than to procreate children is to do injury to nature" (ibid. 2:10:95:3).
"[Some] complain of the scantiness of their means, and allege that they have not enough for bringing up more children, as though, in truth, their means were in [their] power . . . or God did not daily make the rich poor and the poor rich. Wherefore, if any one on any account of poverty shall be unable to bring up children, it is better to abstain from relations with his wife" (<Divine Institutes> 6:20 [A.D. 3o7]).
"God gave us eyes not to see and desire pleasure, but to see acts to be performed for the needs of life; so too, the genital ['generating'] part of the body, as the name itself teaches, has been received by us for no other purpose than the generation of offspring" (ibid. 6:23:18).
"But I wonder why he [the heretic Jovinianus] set Judah and Tamar before us for an example, unless perchance even harlots give him pleasure; or Onan, who was slain because he grudged his brother seed. Does he imagine that we approve of any sexual intercourse except for the procreation of children?" (<Against Jovinian> 1: 19 [A.D. 393]).
"For thus the eternal law, that is, the will of God creator of all creatures, taking counsel for the conservation of natural order, not to serve lust, but to see to the preservation of the race, permits the delight of mortal flesh to be released from the control of reason in copulation only to propagate progeny" (ibid., 22:30).
The fact of this change, introducing a distinction between ABC and NFP leads to some interesting eisogesis: from the same EWTN site:
Letter of Barnabas
"Moreover, he [Moses] has rightly detested the weasel [Lev. 11 :29]. For he means, 'Thou shalt not be like to those whom we hear of as committing wickedness with the mouth with the body through uncleanness [orally consummated sex]; nor shalt thou be joined to those impure women who commit iniquity with the mouth with the body through uncleanness"' (<Letter of Barnabas> 10:8 [A.D. 74]).
There is no hint of "consumated" (i.e. ejaculation) at all in the passage. "Barnabas" abhors oral sex (amongst other things). Period. It is being read into the text here to serve the new (for the Vatican) teaching on the matter. To that end the apologists make use of feminist studies and other dubious sources, for instance:
The operative words, to be quoted in context are: “Thou shalt not use magic (ou mageuseis); thou shalt not use drugs (ou pharmakeusis).” It is reasonable to conclude that the double prohibition refers to contraception and abortion because these terms (mageia) and (pharmaka) were understood to cover the use of magical rites and/or medical potions for both contraception and abortion. Moreover, the context in the Didache refers to sex activity and the right to life.http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Abortion_Euthanasia/Abortion_Euthanasia_004.htm
Feminst studies have claimed that the witch craze of the renaissance (yes, although these studies don't dwell on or mention that fact, they didn't happen during the "dark" Middle Ages) was to persecute women, by cutting off the source of contraceptions, the women herbalists. It is things like this which do continue the dependence of this mentality on appeals to 'natural law" (which HV nearly only argues, besides an appeal to magisterium authority), something its apologia also cite the Fathers on. From the same site of Fr. Hardon:
It is in this context that the following stricture of contraception was made. Marriage in itself merits esteem and the highest approval, for the Lord wished men to “be fruitful and multiply.” He did not tell them, however, to act like libertines, nor did He intend them to surrender themselves to pleasure as though born only to indulge in sexual relations. Let the Educator (Christ) put us to shame with the word Exechiel: “Put away your fornications.” Why, even unreasoning beasts know enough not to mate at certain times. To indulge in intercourse without intending children is to outrage nature, whom should take as our instructor (Paedagogues, 2, 10; 95, 3, GCS, 12, 214).
Here St. Clement is not mentioning the rhythm for contraception, but the rhythm method for
conception. In other words, married couples shouldn't mate out of season. In the language question of Katharevousa versus Dhemotiki, the point was made that even the most die hard supporter of Katharevousa had to resort sometimes to Dhemotiki: no one made love in Katharevousa. So it was claimed. I get the feeling that St. Clement would, if he would, make love in Katharevousa, if not in Attic.
To find biblical support, the HV apologists include references to castration:
St. John is referring to castration. Castration is, of course, an extreme form of contraception--but it is nonetheless a form of contraception, one that has been fairly widely used during this century in population control, e.g., in India and China. In fact, sterilization is the most popular form of contraception in the world (according to the UN Population Division): 30% of contraceptors rely on female sterilization and 8% rely on male sterlization. http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2007/03/contraception-early-church-teaching.html
(1) Castration is a form of contraception.
(2) St. John was preaching in opposition to Gnostics who used castration precisely as a form of contraception.
(3) The Fathers and canons condemned self-castration because it was primarily a contraceptive method.
(4) St. John uses exactly the same language with regard to a pharmacological-type and other forms of contraception.
(5) Sterilization is simply surgical or chemical castration.
And the apologetics get quite inventive:
Acts 5:1-11 - Ananias and Sapphira were slain because they withheld part of a gift. Fertility is a gift from God and cannot be withheld.http://www.scripturecatholic.com/contraception.html
And of course, there's Onan:
The most popular modern day, rationale that Protestants use, is that Onan is killed because he did not fulfill the obligation to marry and bear children for Tamar. There are several reasons why this is not a reasonable explanation. First, we need to compare Gen. 38 to Deuteronomy 25:1-10, which eliminates this possible explanation. It says in Deuteronomy, that regardless of a man's motives for refusing to raise up seed for a dead brother, the man is not to be put to death. Thus, the person not only does not marry, but also provides no offspring for his brother who died: The Levirate responsibility. Here in Deuteronomy, he is to be humiliated only (shoe pulled off, face spit on, etc.). On the other hand, Onan was put to death for what he did, while the man in Deu. 25 is not. http://matt1618.freeyellow.com/birthcontrol.html
As we compare the two Bible texts (Gen. 38:8-10 and Deu. 25:5-10) we need to ask ourselves, "What did Onan do that the man of Deu. 25 didn't do?" The difference in conduct explains the difference in the penalty meted out by God. And the difference is that Onan wasted (killed, destroyed) his seed, the other man did not. Suppose the man in Deu. 25 thinks exactly as Onan, saying to himself, "I don't want to raise up seed for my brother," yet doesn't waste his seed? What happens to him according to the law of God? -- humiliation only, regardless of his unloving thoughts. (Provan, The Bible and Birth Control p. 13)
Notice the text. It says that what he did was displeasing to God. He did spill the semen, thus enjoy sex, and made sure that there were no consequences. What did Onan do that displeased God? Notice that in the verse, he spilled the semen on the ground. However, the word that is used for spilling semen on the ground is not merely spill. I find out from Provan, that 'The verb used is not for merely emitting semen. Out of all the verses which mention the emission of semen in the Old Testament, the Onan verse 'he wasted his seed on the ground' is the only verse to employ the word 'shachath' (which means 'to waste, corrupt, destroy, devastate', . This word is used in many passages as a synonym for 'killed.', destroy. (For example see Gen. 6:17, 9:15 and Judges 20:21) Does one not see that there might be a reason for Onan's emission of seed to described as a 'killing' of seed, while all other passages use words which merely mean 'emit'? The reason is that in all other passages, no one does anything to intentionally harm the semen--but in Onan's case, he deliberately killed his. If 'there is nothing in the whole Bible that specifically condemns the spilling of the seed', then why does Scripture use the very negative word 'shacath' in Onan's case but not in any of the others? (Provan, The Bible and Birth Control, p. 40)
As a matter of fact, we do not have to go to Deuteronomy 25 to show that this argument is insufficient. We can look at Genesis 38 itself to see that the argument that Onan was killed because of his refusing to fulfill the obligation to raise up children is insufficient. This theory that God is punishing Onan merely because he failed to fulfill the Levirate rule makes God capricious. For example, in this very chapter of Genesis, not only does Judah not get punished for doing the very same thing as Onan did, (withholding his son Selah from her), but Selah himself withholds himself from her. Given that Judah himself compounds the problem by making her a harlot, Onan's specific act of destroying seed takes a larger picture. Judah had promised to give Tamar his son to her (v.11), when he was older. Judah himself is deceitful, and he himself, when caught, admits that he is a worse sinner than herself (v. 26). Shelah himself, who was now grown up, (v. 14), also was deceitful, should have taken her as her husband, and raised up children. He did not. Tamar notices this, but no deaths of either Judah or Shelah. Thus, they were all in a sense rebellious, and did not do what they should have. So, what is the difference between Judah, Onan, and Shelah? The only substantive fact is that Onan went into her lawfully as he married her (unlike Judah who went into her unlawfully), but only Onan destroyed the seed. Ultimately any attempt to exclude this as the principle grounds of Onan's death, is a pure attempt at expediency.
One has argued that there is another difference between Onan and the person in Deut. 25 that makes it worse. That he married her, but refused to raise up children.
Actually, that would make Onan actually better, because he actually married the sister. Thus, he is better off even than those who wouldn't marry the sister. Thus, he shouldn't have even been criticized and humiliated by Tamar, as prescribed for those in Deuteronomy 25. The fact that Onan married her actually means he obeyed what he should have done in this specific area. Although God in his own wisdom sometimes treat people differently, and punishes them differently, for the most part, he is equitable in his treatment of people. There is nothing shown in Judah's or his son Shelah's life, that show that they had a great relationship with God and that is how they did this with no repercussions while Onan was killed. This reasoning thus falls short of explaining the difference.
Question is, what is the difference between the man who just refuses to sleep with his wife when she is in her infertile period? Something the HV apologists never focus on is the text gives Onan's intention. How is that different, in these apologies, from the intention behind NFP?
One thing I am curious about: it is a common belief that nursing acts as a contraceptive. I'm not sure how early that goes back (I've seen some references in Islamic texts, but no Christian ones come to mind). Is there any Patristics on intercourse during nursing? How different would that be from hormones preventing ovulation?