Exploring Catholic Church's Understanding of RH Bill: Issues and Concerns for Dialogue

In the recent commentary in the  Philippine Daily Inquirer, a professor of social anthropology from the University of Philippines, Mary Racelis, joined in the call for the Catholic church to dialogue. In her article, “The listening church?,” she pointed out three important points: (1) the alarming life-situation of the poor women due to lack of access to safe and affordable reproductive health services; (2) the resistance of the Catholic church to enter into dialogue among the experts; anchoring her arguments to the call of Vatican II to dialogue with the experts in the modern world and the pro-poor demands of being Church of the Poor as envisioned by PCP-II; and (3) the power structure of the Catholic church centralized in the androcentric and patriarchal leadership viz meaningful participation of the lay people, especially the women.

Areas for Dialogue and Collaboration

In her observations, among others, Professor Racelis pointed out the strong resistance of the Catholic church to engage in a higher level of dialogue among the experts. But what are the areas for dialogue and collaboration?

The best guide for dialogue is to look into the recent pronouncement of the CBCP, its pastoral letter “Choosing Life, Rejecting the RH Bill.”  Here, the CBCP has pointed out three areas of concern (1) the use of artificial contraception; (2) the issue of overpopulation and poverty alleviation; and (3) freedom of choice of the women.

I.      Artificial Contraceptives

Bishop Teodoro Bacani in his primer “Catholics and RH 5043 (Reproductive Heath Bill, 2008)” positively identified the use of artificial contraceptives as a non-negotiable item. He said “The Church teaches that direct abortion, direct sterilization and direct contraception are wrong in themselves and should not be resorted to. Hence there is no way that the Church will collaborate in the promotion of these immoral practices.”

Clearly, the Catholic church opposed the use of artificial contraception on purely moral ground, to be accurate, on Catholic moral teaching, specifically the teaching of Humanae Vitae. But why is artificial morally unacceptable?

Artificial Contraception is Morally Wrong. Bishop Bacani begins his reflection by asserting the principle of the Church: “The Catholic bishops say that contraceptive is wrong not because the Church forbids it. Rather, the Church forbids it because it is wrong. This statement refers to contraception in relation to the conjugal act, or the marital act of a married couple.”

He defines contraception as “the doing of an act which is directly intended to prevent procreation. This can be done prior to, in the course of, or after the performance of the conjugal act.”

The obvious difference from abstention and contraception is the absence of conjugal act.

So, what is a conjugal act? Bishop Bacani explained, following Humane Vitae, the two meanings of conjugal acts – (1) the unitive act which refers to the potential of the conjugal act to foster mutual love in the spouses; and (2) the procreative act which refers to the potential of the conjugal act to produce new life.

Why are contraceptives not allowed? According to Humane Vitae, “every conjugal act must remain open to the transmission of life. Human beings cannot separate on their own initiative the two meanings of the conjugal act, the unitive and the procreative.”

Bishop Bacani attempts to explain this: 

What Pope Paul VI means is that people may not on their own initiative separate the two meanings of the conjugal acts. What God can do through the workings of nature, men may not always be able to do, because while men indeed have dominion over their own bodies, they do not have complete dominion over their own bodies. For example, a man may not, while he is completely healthy, donate his heart to another person. Thus, the Pope says that man has no unlimited dominion “over his specifically sexual faculties, for these are concerned by their by their very nature with the generation of life, of which God is the source.”

As a steward of his own body, and as having a limited dominion over it, man may not separate on his own initiative the two meanings of the conjugal act while taking advantage of the rhythm put in the human body by God. According to the Pope, this limitation has been set by God, who is the source of life.

Honestly, I find it difficult to understand this teaching of Pope Paul VI, even if explained by a moral theologian, Bishop Bacani. It is surprising to know that even Bishop Bacani admits that this teaching is not easy to comprehend. As a professor of moral theology, Bishop Bacani is obliged to explain it for the lay person to understand.

Let us turn the table around and try to envision the morality of severing the unitive aspect from the procreative aspect of the conjugal act. What will happen if a man separates on his own initiative the unitive meaning from the procreative meaning and decides to have a ‘”loveless intercourse” with his wife? Will it be moral for a man to have loveless intercourse with his wife just to satisfy his desire or just to produce a baby? That will be reducing the woman to an object of pleasure or to make her into a baby machine! That would not be humanizing for the woman and for the man.

One can see from this example that the separation by man’s initiative of the two aspects of the conjugal act will mean a deficiency in the total self-giving that the conjugal act is meant to signify. The separation of the two meanings by man’s initiative will result in falsifying the meaning of the conjugal act as a symbol of the total self-giving of the couple to one another.

Are you convinced now about the inseparableness of the unitive and procreative meaning of the conjugal act? I leave it up to you. 

Contrary to what I expect, Bishop Bacani does not consider such teaching of Pope Paul VI as infallible. It means this teaching can be changed. He explains:

We accept the Church’s teaching against direct contraception and direct sterilization, as official Catholic teaching, or authoritative teaching without claiming that it is infallible and irreversible. We accept it not with an act of faith or with an act of definitive assent, but with what is called “religious assent.” A docile submission of will and mind to what is being taught, motivated by the authority of the authorized teacher, which in this case is the Pope.

Further Reflection:

After listening to Bishop Bacani, which I selected as an authority in this official teaching of Humanae Vitae as both a bishop of the Church and a moral theologian, let us listen to other voices within the Church.

Fr. Roy Cimagala, an awardee of Cebu Archdiocesan Mass Media Awards (CAMMA) and a  columnist in The Freeman, a local newspaper in Cebu City. I found his article “Contraception is intrinsically evil” in the CBCP Blogs for Life which directed me to his blog, Sailing.

Honestly, I expected more information from Fr. Cimagala’s article in support of Bishop Bacani's explanation about the inseparablessness of the unitive and procreative meanings of conjugal act by man's initiative, but I was disappointed. While he explained about the limited space, I think he wrote this as a newspaper article, he only asserted that contraception is intrinsically evil at the beginning and towards the end of his article. He offered no explanation except, “That’s quite clear and categorical, isn’t it? Similar teaching is repeated in many other documents.”

He quoted the Cathechism of the Catholic Church (1994) under “The fecundity of marriage” section: [“Fecundity is a gift, an end of marriage, for conjugal act naturally tends to be fruitful.” CCC 2366 —jsalvador]

Every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible is intrinsically evil.

Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other.” (2370)

If this is a clear explanation for you why contraceptives are intrinsically evil, then, go ahead. I will explore further.

In his new entry in his blog “RH Bill again!” I found this:

So, what´s wrong with the RH Bill? In plain language, it promotes a contraceptive lifestyle that destroys the family and debases the true nature and meaning of human sexuality.

The world´s leading scientific experts have also claimed that artificial contraceptives kill children since many of them do not prevent fertilization. They simply prevent implantation. They also injure women´s health since the pill, for example, causes cancer, as well as stroke, and increases the risk of heart attacks.

Condoms have been found to promote, not stop, the spread of AIDS. Economists also claim the RH Bill is based on wrong economics. We need to expose the myths.

We find no explanation why contraception is intrinsically evil but he purported that contraceptives kill children because they do not prevent fertilization, but only prevent implantation. He cited as source “world’s leading scientific experts” but provided no link to the said experts.

So what we have here is the shift from Bishop Bacani’s moral justification based on the limited dominion of man over his body to contraceptives that kill fertilized ovum by preventing implantation.

The issue now is: where does life begins?

I stop here, for now, and continue reflecting on it later on… kudos!