Did the Holy Spirit Speak Through Humanae Vitae?

The American Papist blog drew my attention to an article by Fr. McBride about Humanae Vitae. Fr. McBride is an old-school "liberal" who just can't seem to recognized that the Church as moved on from the 1960's. However, some of his statements are worth considering for the sake of historical and theological accuracy.

Humanae Vitae: After 40 years | The-Tidings.com

Forty years ago Pope Paul VI rejected the advice of two-thirds of the Papal Birth Control Commission, and issued an encyclical in which he reaffirmed the teaching of previous 20th-century popes that every act of sexual intercourse within marriage must be open to the transmission of life. The use of any contraceptive device --- pill, condom or diaphragm --- was still to be regarded as seriously sinful.

The Papal Birth Control Commission was not commissioned to give advice or recommendation on whether or not the Church should accept contraception. Its purpose was to offer scientific descriptions of the various methods of birth control to help the pope understand if the nature of these methods have changed. The information that the commission collected showed that the nature of these methods had not changed. Its recommendation to allow birth control was based on cultural trends, not on science and certainly not on Inspiration from the Holy Spirit.

A Vatican official, Msgr. Ferdinando Lambruschini, made clear upon release of the encyclical that the teaching was not infallible, and he invited theologians and other specialists in the Church to discuss and debate it.

Msgr. Lambruschini was wrong. Humanae Vitae reaffirmed the constant teaching of the Church that contraception is wrong. The constant teaching of the Church on moral issues (part of the "ordinary magisterium") is infallible even without the direct declaration of infallibility by the pope (part of the "extraordinary magisterium").

In a column published immediately after that press conference, I wrote
that "it is precisely in proclaiming the Gospel that the Pope fulfills
his role as chief shepherd and holy father. If the proclamation is
genuinely evangelical, the Holy Spirit will see to the echo throughout
the whole Church; if it is not, [the Holy Spirit] will see to the
static" (Aug. 9, 1968).

"On the birth control issue," the column pointed out, "the Pope's
present position does not seem to reflect the consensus of the Church,
and static fills the air. The encyclical is at odds with the
conclusions of the overwhelming majority of the Pope's own commission
of experts, the public resolutions of the Third World Lay Congress in
Rome, the majority of Catholic moral theologians, the consciences of
many Catholic married couples, and the pastoral and theological
judgments of the large majority of non-Catholic Christian churches
which participate in the life of the Body of Christ and in his Spirit."

This is the crux of Fr. McBride's ongoing arguments against the magisterium of the Church. An historical example illustrates why the "magisterium of consensus" is not a legitimate understanding of how the Holy Spirit works in the Church. The Arian heresy was an early heresy originating in 325 AD. It taught that Christ was not God, but an inferior, created spiritual being who was adopted by God as the Son. Effectively promoted by means of setting its doctrine to drinking songs, it became widely accepted within the Church. Even many bishops adopted its teachings. While it seems ludicrous to us today, we have to remember that this heresy appeared before the Nicene Council, before the clear definition of the Holy Trinity. However, the point is that if the magisterium was meant to be directed by consensus of the masses, we should not today believe that Jesus Christ is co-eternal and co-existent with the Father. The Holy Spirit works through the magisterium of the Church - through the Ecumenical Councils, the Pope, and Tradition.

Fr. McBride's error is an over-emphasis of the role the body of the Church plays in the magisterium. The Holy Spirit does not fall to the whim of the majority of people who are influenced by secular culture at a particular time. The universal magisterium of the People of God is the sum of their belief throughout time as well as space. What has "always and everywhere been taught and embraced by the Church" is infallibly taught by the Holy Spirit.

Finally, given advances in natural family planning sciences, one wonders what exactly Fr. McBride is fighting for in his stubborn opposition to Humane Vitae. The Church has never taught that married couples need to have such a large number of children that their lives are seriously burdened. Couples are called by Humanae Vitae to generosity in the creation of new life, tempered by prudential constraint. If a couple decides that they do not currently have the material or emotional resources to care for another child, they may have recourse to the woman's times of natural infertility (i.e. use NFP) to postpone or avoid pregnancy. NFP is as effective as any method of contraception in avoiding pregnancy.

One difference between contraception and NFP is that NFP requires periodic abstinence, while contraception allows couples to have sex whenever they want. Is Fr. McBride trying to tell us that the Holy Spirit prefers couples to be driven by sexual desire rather than exercising human control over their biological drives? Does he believe that the Holy Spirit embraces the "sexual revolution" and the hedonism it has popularized? It seems much more likely to me that the Holy Spirit worked through the magisterial teaching of Tradition and of Pope Paul VI to oppose a colossus of cultural shift toward hedonism.