I've been reading National Review and NRO for many, many
years, and I appreciate the fact that its numerous editors and
contributors disagree about a host of issues, many of them political
issues, but also many that are religious and moral. For instance, one of
my favorite NRO authors, Jonah Goldberg, is a self-professed secular
Jew who has strong libertarian leanings, apparently believes in God, and
thinks "same-sex marriage" is just fine. [Edit: Goldberg has actually expressed support for civil unions, not "same-sex marriage", although in this March 22, 2013, column, he writes, "I myself have grown both more pro-life and more sympathetic to gay marriage."] In short, I read a lot of
essays and articles written by people with whom I disagree on matters
big (God), small (sports), and in-between (music).
That said, the essay, "Pope Francis, Say Yes to the Pill",
by Conrad Black is simply embarrassing, and that might be an insult to
embarrassing people everywhere. Black is a former newspaper publisher, a
convicted felon, an historian, a pundit, and a convert to Catholicism
(he was an atheist/agnostic into his 30s) with a most interesting bio.
I've read many of his pieces over the years; he is a very good writer
with many thoughtful insights into political and cultural issues. But,
as he essentially admits in his ridiculous plea for the Church to
embrace contraceptives, he shouldn't be writing about matters of
theology: "I do not underestimate, and am not qualified to discuss, the
theological arguments involved."
Well! That's like bringing a
banana peel to a gun fight. Too politically incorrect? Okay. It's like
someone who has never played or watched a game of pro football wading
into the current rules changes that will penalize players for leading
with their helmets (if you just said, "Huh?" I salute you) and saying,
"I don't know anything about football, but players should run backwards
on every other play."
Black's arguments—excuse me,
"arguments"—boil down to two, um, things: he thinks the Church's
teachings about contraceptives are out of step with the times (I
know—you've never heard that before), and he doesn't like being mocked
or seen as backwards because of said teaching. That's basically it. For
example:
The
Roman Catholic Church’s desire to avoid trendiness and pandering is
commendable, and distinguishes it from many other churches. The need to
encourage the most principled and self-disciplined of the faithful is
strong and admirable. I do not underestimate, and am not qualified to
discuss, the theological arguments involved. But there are
insurmountable problems with an enunciated principle of sexuality that
everyone knows is largely ignored in practice and practically
unnecessary, and that assists the Church’s numerous and influential
enemies in discounting its moral influence as the principal ark of the
Christian message. The Church’s official position on contraception
enables its enemies to portray it as an archaic society for the
propagation of chaste humbug by an esoteric fraternity of superannuated
clergymen in antiquarian costumes.
As my pastor said, after reading Black's essay: "In
other words, instead of consistently teaching the same moral principle,
change your mind on this one and people will respect your moral
authority as you tell them what they want to hear." Right. And:
There
must be a dogmatically respectable way to execute a dignified
climb-down and declare the sexual act a consequential moral commitment
appropriate to and generally reserved to marriage, but sometimes
unexceptionable when undertaken with contraceptive precautions, and
reprehensible only if entered into wantonly. By clinging to the
objection to contraception, even among married couples, the Church
conveys the false impression of wishing to make sex risky and
inaccessible, of opposing useful science, and of putting its hostility
to safe sex ahead of its mortal opposition to abortion, a much more
defensible and important cause that would be directly assisted by ending
the failed war on contraception. The Roman Catholic Church, with all
respect to the long traditions involved, should not be in the business
of appearing to be the party of joyless behavioral philistinism, and
should not needlessly subject itself to unjust imputations of hypocrisy.
The secondary controversy over an all-male clergy can probably be dealt
with by laicizing more activities with equal opportunities for women.
Nicely
written. Badly considered. Sadly missing the point. (Say, since the war
on heroin, meth, and crack is going badly, let's allow those drugs to
be legal. After all, some people enjoy them. More to the point: the
Church did not start the war!) Does Black, an obviously well-educated
and well-read man, really believe the Church holds her position just to
avoid being trendy? Or to be different from Anglicans, Baptists, and the
First Community Church of Billy Bob and His Four Brothers and Two
Mothers? The theological reasons, as Pope Paul VI demonstrated in Humanae Vitae,
are essential to the whole issue, because the key questions are either
theological or touch on theological matters: What is man? What is
marriage? What is the sexual union for? Why did God create man and woman
as he did? Etc and etc.
This was taken up by Bl. John Paul II
for several years in his catechesis on love and marriage, often called
"the theology of the body". John Paul II argued, in various texts, that
the "contraceptive mentality" logically leads to abortion. And guess
what? He (like Paul VI) was entirely correct to write things such as:
It is frequently asserted that contraception, if made
safe and available to all, is the most effective remedy against abortion. The
Catholic Church is then accused of actually promoting abortion, because she
obstinately continues to teach the moral unlawfulness of contraception. When
looked at carefully, this objection is clearly unfounded. It may be that many
people use contraception with a view to excluding the subsequent temptation of
abortion. But the negative values inherent in the "contraceptive
mentality"-which is very different from responsible parenthood, lived in
respect for the full truth of the conjugal act-are such that they in fact
strengthen this temptation when an unwanted life is conceived. Indeed, the pro-
abortion culture is especially strong precisely where the Church's teaching on
contraception is rejected. Certainly, from the moral point of view
contraception and abortion are specifically different evils: the former
contradicts the full truth of the sexual act as the proper expression of
conjugal love, while the latter destroys the life of a human being; the former
is opposed to the virtue of chastity in marriage, the latter is opposed to the
virtue of justice and directly violates the divine commandment "You shall
not kill". ("The Gospel of Life", 13)
There
is much more that could be said. And should be said. I will keep it to
two items. First, to claim the Catholic Church, by standing against
contraception, "[appears] to be the party of joyless behavioral
philistinism" is astonishingly misguided. It speaks to a complete
failure to comprehend both the content of Church teaching and the actual situation today, in which the real "party of joyless behavioral philistinism" consists of those who promote or give a pass to free sex, contraception, pornography,
cohabitation, fornication, and abortion. Granted, a lot of people make
the mistake that Black is making, but he should know better. Secondly, I still cannot believe that NRO published such a vapid, confused, and incoherent essay. There are plenty of other sites for such nonsense. It is, again, simply embarrassing.