Humanae Vitae vs. Materialism: a Battle for the Human Soul

Most people who have heard anything at all about Humanae Vitae assume that this encyclical's main message is that Catholics are to use natural family planning rather than contraception. However, as David M McCarthy reminds us in "Procreation, the Development of Peoples, and the Final Destiny of Humanity," Humane Vitae's main message is that people called to the vocation of marriage are called to the vocation of family. Having children and accepting them in love fulfills the human mission.

What I appreciate about McCarthy's article is that he clearly shows that Humanae Vitae, which articulates Catholic thought about the marriage and family life, and the modern contraceptive mentality come from very specific life philosophies.

The modern philosophy is a mixture of materialism and secularism (and I would add hedonism). The modern world

Our increasing ability to manipulate human life coincides with contemporary assumptions about progress. Common sense formulae for economic growth pit money-making and childbearing against each other not only in terms of a global equation for developing countries, but also for the American middle-class couple who secure their own bit of economic and social advancement (along with their careers) with what has become a requisite access to contraceptives. control and efficiency are fundamental to progress because children are inefficient (they are voracious time consumers). Controlling births is risk management. Bearing and raising children (and domestic life as a whole) is no longer considered a productive venture, but a practice of consumption that drains rather than accrues resources. Contraception allows women and men to shift energy, time, and talent from the domestic to the productive sphere, and to this degree controlling the procreative character of human life has become the necessary insurance required to bear and raise children properly. Contraception is as obvious to economic common sense as mutual funds and putting money in the bank.

When children are considered a liability and a luxury item, sex becomes recreation and reproduction becomes a commodity.

In the Catholic understanding of marriage and family, a person called to marriage is called to procreate and to nurture life and love. The purpose of a career is twofold. It is primarily a means with which to provide for the needs of the family. As we work to provide for our family, we also serve our fellow human beings and thereby cooperate in God's design for creation. Children are the center of married life, and by learning to selflessly love our children we find fulfillment and ultimately holiness.

We must realize as Catholics that to accept contraception is to accept the secular materialistic view of marriage, children and family. It is also to accept the hedonistic notion that people should be able to have sex whenever they want without worrying about the "consequences." The periodic abstinence that natural family planning calls us to is really the only reason left for opposing NFP and embracing contraception. NFP is as effective in preventing pregnancy (when serious need arises) as any form of birth control, it is more effective than most treatments to aid fertility when problems arise, it costs much less than any medical or mechanical means of avoiding or achieving pregnancy, and it is almost universally available (I say almost because there may be some people in the world without access to NFP education). Why do people rail against it? Because it requires sexual self-control to become an integral part of the marriage relationship.

So, which worldview will you embrace? Will you embrace the contraceptive mentality that preaches sex without consequences (or meaning) and children as luxury items? Will you embrace the Church's teaching that sex is a sacred, meaningful act that produces new life and calls us to love the children we create? It is time for Catholics to recognize which philosophy their attitude toward contraception embraces and to make a conscious choice. We can no longer afford to deceive ourselves into thinking that we can accept contraception and not embrace the worldview that it creates.

Works Cited

McCarthy, David M. "Procreation, the Development of Peoples, and the Final Destiny of Humanity." Communio Volume 26, no. 4 (Winter, 1999). International Catholic Review: Washington, DC.