More than 20 years have passed since the publication of Humanae Vitae in 1968, and a certain kind of calm has fallen over the controversies about contraception. But it is a deceptive and spurious calm, for we have only to probe its surface to find that it rests on deep-rooted disagreements The sense of conviction that the matter is settled is belied by the fact that it has been settled in two very different ways. If anything, this calm is a calm of exhaustion. The years before and after Humanae Vitae saw an enormous outpouring of arguments by philosophers and theologians, doctors and sociologists, as well as married couples themselves. We have detailed histories of the Church's teaching over the centuries on contraception, extensive reviews of how the current debates developed and led to the publication of Humane Vitae, and defenses of, and attacks on, the encyclical itself. Yet, with all this, neither side has been able to convince the other.

In recent years Pope John Paul II has reiterated the teaching of his predecessors and even insisted on it, and he is supported by an increasingly determined minority of clergy and lay Catholic married people. The majority of the other hand, at least in the U.S. and Europe, do not agree with this teaching. The issue of contraception divides the Church, and in doing so has many harmful effects. It obscures the genuine teaching role of the Church. It acts as a rallying point for disagreements about any number of issues that do not have to do directly with the morality of contraception. It blocks energy that could be better spent in developing a theology and spirituality of the married life, and addressed to other issues in the field of sexual morality, especially the problem of world population. And finally, it alienates Catholics from the life of their Church.

The majority of Catholic married people, though discomforted in various degrees by their dissent, have no inclination to change. The basis for their decisions seems more secure than ever. The Pope and his supporters feel that their position cannot change without denying the age-old traditions of the church, and they feel keenly their responsibility to support this position in a world sorely beset by problems of a sexual nature. There is no other issue that divides the Church so completely, and where each side can call in their defense such powerful advocates.

What will happen? One unfortunate scenario would be a new confrontation. In it the defenders of tradition would insist on their position and try to impose it in various ways on the rest of the Church. They would make it a litmus test of Church loyalty. This would be disastrous, both tactically because it has little chance of succeeding, and more fundamentally because it would alienate still more people from the life of the Church community.

There is another possibility. It is the elaboration of a solution to this long-standing debate. This book outlines such a solution. This would be a presumptuous undertaking except for the fact that most of the elements of this solution have already been fashioned during the course of the debates, and what is most needed is to find the proper vantage point from which they can be brought together and properly evaluated.

A clear understanding of why the Church has condemned contraception will make a secure starting point for our inquiry. Its reasoning is straightforward, and its centuries-long tradition of condemnation was summed up in 1930 by Pius XI in his encyclical Casti Connubii:

"since... the conjugal act is designed of its very nature for the generation of children, those who, in performing it, deliberately deprive it of its natural power and capacity, act against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically immoral." (No. 53)

This same kind of reasoning was used by Pius XII and succinctly stated by Paul VI in Humanae Vitae:

"...the Church, calling men back to the observance of the norms of the natural law, as interpreted by her constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life." (No. 11)

"...excluded is every action which, either 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." (No. 14)

This teaching "is founded upon the inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning. Indeed, by its intimate structure, the conjugal act, while most closely uniting husband and wife, capacitates them for the generation of new lives according to laws inscribed in the very being of man and of woman." (No. 12)

John Paul II reiterates this same position in "Community of the Family":

"When couples, by means of recourse to contraception, separate these two meanings that God the Creator has inscribed in the being of man and woman and in the dynamism of their sexual communion, they act as "arbiters" of the divine plan and they "manipulate" and degrade human sexuality and with it themselves and their married partner by altering its value of "total" self-giving. 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. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality." (No. 32)

Though the language of these condemnations has changed dramatically from Pius XI to John Paul II, the underlying thought has remained the same, and this is what we have to examine.

It is important for us to carefully analyze the nature of the conjugal act in order to assess these traditional arguments. According to Paul VI and John Paul II, the conjugal act has both a unitive and procreative dimension. Let's change the language a bit and say it has both a physical and spiritual dimension. Physically, the very biological structure of the act shows its procreative nature. What does this mean? Nothing more than the fact that the placing of the sperm where it can potentially fertilize the egg shows the procreative nature of the conjugal act. Whatever might be the other meanings of this act, one physically grounded aspect of it is to make babies. If this were not so, there never would have been a problem about contraception to begin with. This physical procreativeness is central to the popes' arguments, and through the centuries it was accepted as an obvious statement that did not demand subtle elaboration. Nor should we let the more refined modern debates about contraception obscure this obvious truth. There is a fundamental relationship between the conjugal act and procreation, and it can be seen in the very physical nature of the act.

Emphasis on the unitive or spiritual dimension of the conjugal act is much more recent. What does this spiritual or unitive dimension mean? The most common way of expressing its meaning is to say that the unitive dimension of the conjugal act is meant to strengthen and encourage the mutual love of the husband and wife for each other.

It is here we arrive at the first critical point in our search for a solution. Is this explanation of the unitive or spiritual aspect adequate? Let's look at this explanation of the unitive dimension pushed to an extreme. The authors of the report Human Sexuality, commissioned by the Catholic Theological Society of America, wanted "to broaden the traditional formulation of the purpose of sexuality from procreative and unitive to creative and integrative.

Wholesome human sexuality is that which fosters a creative growth toward integration." (p. 86)

What this amounted to was to say that the unitive aspect of the sexual act, understood as creative and integrative, could stand alone, without an intrinsic link to procreation. The consequence was that it became very difficult for these authors to uphold the immorality of premarital or extramarital sex, and other practices, for it could be argued that they were "creative and integrative" for the people practicing them. Therefore, when the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith took exception to this book, it was correct. (July 13, 1979)

And this general problem is what I suppose was in the popes' minds when they insisted on the inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative dimensions of the conjugal act. In this way they sought to safeguard Catholic morality, and prevent the unitive dimension from becoming the reason or pretext for using the sexual act outside of marriage. I believe it is also at the root of their allied fear that any approval of contraception would open the door to all sorts of abuse of the sexual act.

But I think there is another and more precise way to look at the unitive or spiritual aspect of the conjugal act. The conjugal act is unitive by making use of the physical structure of the conjugal act, which is fundamentally linked to procreation. And it is unitive by using this procreatively oriented physical act to bind the husband and wife together, to become a symbol of their giving of themselves to each other in love. But this very unitive or spiritual dimension not only expresses itself in a procreative physical language, it is a particular kind of union. It is a union which is itself procreative. It binds the spouses together in a shared experience in view of the child to be born. The womb of the mother, where the physical mystery of procreation -takes place, must be extended by the womb of the family. And this womb of the family, so vital for the true birth of the child both psychologically and spiritually, is created by the unitive aspect of the conjugal act. In this way the spiritual or unitive aspect of the conjugal act is itself intrinsically procreative.

The two dimensions of the conjugal act are one, not in virtue of some external decree, but by both being procreative, both being parts of the one act which is meant to give birth to a child both physically and spiritually.

Against this analysis of the conjugal act and its two procreative meanings we can see the ways in which it is possible to go against the nature of the conjugal act and which of these ways is behind the popes' condemnation of contraception.

First, it is possible to thwart both the physical and spiritual aspects of the act. This happens, for example, in prostitution or even in marriage if a couple were to see marriage neither as related to children nor to their love for each other, but only as a convenient way to gratify themselves.

Secondly, it is possible to will the physical aspect of the conjugal act and deny the spiritual. We might have a child solely for the sake of some monetary gain, or for avoiding military service, without love and without the spiritual union it ought to create by means of the conjugal act.

The third way we can go against the conjugal act is to will the spiritual dimension and to thwart the physical dimension. This can happen, for example, when a couple who have children seek to strengthen their love for each other for the sake of both themselves and the children they have, but do not want to have another child.

Even though it is valuable to distinguish a procreative and a unitive dimension of the conjugal act, it would be a mistake to conceive of these two dimensions as simply touching, like the upper and lower floor of one building. The conjugal act is a reflection of our own nature which is both matter and spirit, not loosely linked together, but a nature in which spirit permeates and activates matter so that it becomes flesh. A smile is certainly not a purely spiritual reality, but neither is it a mere configuration of facial muscles. It is matter bearing a spiritual meaning. The conjugal act as a human act is not only a biological act of physical procreation, but it is meant to be animated by a love of the husband and wife who, in the act of physical intimacy, give themselves to each other spiritually so as to create a bond of union and shared life that is the ideal condition for the full development of the child. The physical language of the conjugal act is meant to be animated by the spiritually procreative language. If we were to ignore both interpenetrating languages in desiring only our selfish pleasure in the conjugal act, we would go against the total nature of the act. If we were to simply speak the physically procreative language out of a love of our own image of virility in fathering many children, we would have negated the soul of this conjugal act. If we were to speak the spiritual language of love of this act and intend to avoid its physically procreative language, we would have gone against the physical nature of the act.

Why do the popes condemn contraception? It is because it thwarts the physical dimension of the conjugal act. It could thwart the spiritual aspect, as well, but it does not have to. But it is clear that an act of contraception does thwart the physical dimension of the conjugal act and is meant to do so, and therefore can be said to go against its nature and its procreative language, as the popes have indicated. This perception is the strength of the popes' position. Its weakness lies in the undeveloped notion of the unitive aspect of the act which does not clearly show its procreative aspect. This makes the defenders of this traditional position fear that any separation of the two dimensions will lead to a flood of immorality. But if the spiritual dimension is itself procreative, and thus linked to marriage, we do not have to fear the separation of the two dimensions in the same way. This is a point that we will return to later.

If we mean by change that suddenly the Pope will decide that contraception does not thwart the physical dimension of the conjugal act, and therefore is not against its nature, we can rather safely say that this will not happen. Contraception does, indeed, thwart this aspect of the conjugal act. But having conceded this point, is our inquiry over before it has scarcely begun?

Let's call the Popes' analysis of the conjugal act an essentialistic one, meaning nothing more than the fact that it is based on the essence or nature of the conjugal act. If this essentialistic tradition represents the complete tradition of the Church on the use of the conjugal act, and if the negation of the physical aspect of the conjugal act were clearly a negation of the whole act, then the prospects for change would be bleak. But contraception does not necessarily negate the whole act, nor does the essentialistic tradition represent the whole tradition of the Church's teaching on the use of the conjugal act.

There is another dimension to the Church's tradition, and its very existence holds out the possibility that it could complement this analysis of the conjugal act and place it in a wider context. Then the further possibility exists that this wider context, while not denying the core of the Popes' reasoning, would show it as partial and incomplete and liable to further development. And this further development could lead to another judgment on the morality of contraception. Such a change would be no greater than similar changes that have already taken place in the Church. (See Noonan, on usury in his essay "The Amendment of Papal Teaching").

The most developed aspect of the Church's tradition on the use of the conjugal act is to be found in its essentialistic analysis of the nature of the conjugal act, and its condemnation of contraception, a condemnation stretching back through the centuries, as Noonan's Contraception shows. But Noonan's book has the merit, as well, of allowing us to see the emergence of another aspect of this tradition, which is equally ancient, yet which has had much more difficulty coming to the light of day. It begins with St. Paul's concession in his first letter to the Corinthians:

"With reference to the matters about which you wrote: is it good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman? Now because of sexual immorality let each man have his own wife and each woman her own husband. Let the husband pay the debt he owes to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have jurisdiction over her own body, but the husband has; likewise also the husband does not have jurisdiction over his own body, but the wife has. Do not deprive each other, except by agreement for a limited period to have time for prayer and then to resume the same marriage relations in order that Satan may not put you to the test on account of your lack of self-control. Now this I am saying by way of concession, not command. I rather wish all people to be even as myself; but each has an individual gift from God, the one this way the other that way." (Orr and Walther)

Augustine understood St. Paul's "concession" as "permission" (venia), and thought it referred to the use of the conjugal act without a direct physically procreative intent. Thus he commented:

"Now in a case where permission must be given, it cannot by any means be contended that there is not some amount of sin. Since, however, the cohabitation for the purpose of procreating children, which must be admitted to be the proper end of marriage, is not sinful, what is it which the apostle allows to be permissible, but that married persons, when they have not the gift of continence, may require one from the other the due of the flesh - and that not from a wish for procreation, but for the pleasure of concupiscence?" ("On Marriage and Concupiscence", Ch. 16)

This led him to the conclusion that the use of the conjugal act was allowed if one of the spouses was in danger of committing a serious sin like adultery, but the person seeking such a remedy still committed a venial sin (from venia). Augustine's interpretation was debatable. It is possible that Paul's concession referred not to the use of the conjugal act, but to abstinence from the conjugal act. Husband and wife can abstain for a time, but this is not a commandment to abstain, but a permission. Augustine's interpretation specifically excluded contraception, and placed this other aspect of the tradition in a negative light, confining it to a minor exception to the procreative nature of marriage. But this tradition which we can describe as a concrete or existential strand of the Church's tradition was based on the actual experience of married people. Paul was not talking of procreation, and in actual fact the people of that time probably no more used the conjugal act solely when they desired a child than the people of Augustine's time or today.

This experience of married people, although unarticulated, constantly fed the existential tradition over the centuries, and every so often a theologian would be touched by it. Lactantius in the 3rd century defended the legitimacy of intercourse during pregnancy, and in the 4th century John Chrysostom supported the legitimacy of intercourse in old age. The existential tradition surfaced briefly in John Damascene in the 8th century on marriage only for the purpose of avoiding incontinence, and in Abelard for whom the overall procreative intent of marriage excused nonprocreative intercourse.

In the 14th century Peter de Palude defended the concession of St. Paul and influenced the writers after him. Noonan comments, "The significance of the controversy lay in its test of the theologians' commitment to the procreative purpose. Slowly, indirectly, artfully, the pure procreative doctrine was undermined, but only to accommodate the doctrine of St. Paul. If only hesitantly, circumspectly, and arguably could a coital purpose be urged which had the highly moral objective of preventing one's own sin, how much less could any other nonprocreative purpose be justified?" (Contraception p. 249)

It was as if St. Paul's concession was an irritant that prevented the complete triumph of the essentialistic procreative tradition. Albert wrote cryptically, "There is no sin of matrimonial intercourse" and of intercourse as a recall of the sacrament of marriage. But his hints remain unexamined until Doms in 1935.

The existential tradition appeared in the debate of the marriage of the sterile and "theologians shrank from attacking the validity of established custom, beneficent in every respect except its complete departure from the central Augustinian account of what marriage was for." (p. 290-1)

The existential tradition, while always overshadowed by the essentialistic one, continued to find its champions. In the 13th century Richard Middleton defended pleasure as a purpose of intercourse, and in the 15th century Martin Le Maistre made bold to suggest that "not every copulation of spouses not performed to generate offspring is an act opposed to conjugal chastity." (p. 307) But he made little immediate headway against the dominant tradition. Yet he is followed in the existential tradition by John Major who saw in marriage not only the duty of procreation, but a way to provide "consolation and other natural services." And why did Major and Le Maistre break out of the prevailing logic on the procreative nature of the conjugal act? "The key is the experience of Christian couples." (p. 312)

After Le Maistre and Major, the lawfulness of intercourse to avoid fornication became the dominant position, and more slowly the legitimacy of intercourse for pleasure was accepted. Intercourse during pregnancy and marriage of the sterile all became commonly accepted positions, as well. Despite the dominance of the Augustinian emphasis on procreation, the existential tradition gained ground. And with its growing strength it brought to the foreground the issue of a unitive or personalist aspect of the conjugal act, and the question of whether the existential tradition had a role to play in the morality of contraception. But the existential tradition moved very slowly under the weight of the essentialistic.

It was not until the 20th century and the work of von Hildebrand and Doms that the unitive aspect of the conjugal act began to be emphasized. And it was not until the early 1960s that the existential tradition found widespread positive expression in the Vatican Council's schema on the Church in the modern world, among the majority of the members of the papal birth control commission, and in the testimony of married people.

There is a moving and partially hidden drama going on here. For centuries the Church has slowly modified the implications of a strict Augustinian approach. But these modifications always took the form of exemptions, rather begrudgingly given from the essentialistic tradition, which was looked upon as the tradition. Then in the freedom encouraged by the Council it became more and more apparent that this essentialistic tradition was not the whole of the Church's tradition, and could not, of itself, resolve the question of contraception. Schema 13, the preliminary blueprint for the pastoral constitution on the: Church in the modern world, became a testing ground in which the two aspects of the tradition struggled. The final document affirmed the procreative nature of marriage by saying, "by their very nature, the institution of matrimony itself and conjugal love are ordained for the procreation and education of children and find in them their ultimate crown." (No. 48) But it emphasized the unitive nature of this conjugal love which "is uniquely expressed and perfected through the marital act." (No. 49)

In the past under the heading of the primary and secondary ends of marriage the love of the spouse had been subordinated to the procreation of children. This had happened because the love of the spouses, or the unitive nature of the conjugal act, had been ignored or expressed negatively in the permission to seek the conjugal act when in danger of serious sin. Now the Council made an important advance by assiduously avoiding the old terminology about primary and secondary ends, while upholding marriage's fundamental procreative intent. But how was this to work out in the concrete? What if the unitive aspect of the act comes in conflict with its physical procreativeness? Finally, the true question about contraception was formulated:

"This Council realizes that certain modern conditions often keep couples from arranging their married lives harmoniously, and that they find themselves in circumstances where at least temporarily the size of their families should not be increased. As a result, the faithful exercise of love and the full intimacy of their lives are hard to maintain. But where the intimacy of married life is broken off, it is not rare for the faithfulness to be imperiled and its quality of fruitfulness ruined. For then the upbringing of the children and the courage to accept new ones are both endangered." (No. 51)

But it was reserved to the papal birth control commission to try to answer this question. And it is not surprising that its debates would parallel the conciliar ones and reflect the same tension between the essentialistic aspect of the tradition and the newly emergent existential one.

The Minority Report authored by Ford, Visser, Zalba and de Lestapis based their conclusions on the traditional reasoning found in the Church. They quote Pius XI's Cast Connubii and Pius XII’s allocution to midwives, as well as citing many other places where Rome or the local bishops had spoken in opposition to contraception. For them the history of contraception is "sufficiently simple".

The Majority Report drafted by Fuchs, Sigmond, Anciaux, Auer, Labourdette and de Locht explores the new ground in the direction the Council had pointed out. They avoid the old terminology of primary and secondary ends, and show the close connection that exists between the love of the spouses and physical and spiritual procreation of the child.

"A couple ought to be considered above all a community of persons which has in itself the beginning of new human life. Therefore those things which strengthen and make more profound the union of persons within this community must never be separated from the procreative finality which specifies the conjugal community." (Kaiser, p. 249)

"But conjugal love, without which marriage would not be a true union of persons, is not exhausted in the simple mutual giving in which one party seeks only the other. Married people know well that they are only able to perfect each other and establish a true community if their love does not end in a merely egotistic union but according to the condition of each is made truly fruitful in the creation of new life. Nor on the other hand can the procreation and education of a child be considered a truly human fruitfulness unless it is the result of a love existing in a family community. Conjugal love and fecundity are in no way opposed, but complement one another in such a way that they constitute an almost indivisible unity." (p. 250)

"This community between married people through which an individual finds himself by opening himself to another, constitutes the optimum situation in which children can be educated in an integrated way. Through developing their communion and intimacy in all its aspects, a married couple is able to provide that environment of love, mutual understanding and humble acceptance which is the necessary condition of authentic human education and maturation." (p. 251)

And it is against this background that contraception must be viewed. They say: "Marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordained towards the begetting and educating of children". (GS II, c.1, #50) A right ordering toward the good of the child within the conjugal and familial community pertains to the essence of human sexuality. Therefore the morality of sexual acts between married people takes its meaning first of all and specifically from the ordering of their actions in a fruitful married life, that is one which is practiced with responsible generous and prudent parenthood." (p. 252)

Then they add:

"It does not then depend upon the direct fecundity of each and every particular act." (p. 252)

" ... it is not to contradict the genuine sense of this tradition and the purpose of the previous doctrinal condemnations if we speak of the regulation of contraception by using means, human and decent, ordered to favoring fecundity in the totality of married life and toward the realization of the authentic values of a fruitful matrimonial community." (p. 253)

If the Council saw the possibility of a conflict between the unitive and procreative aspects of the conjugal act, the majority of the birth control commission sought a solution not in the particular marital act but against the totality of the marriage. What conduct would serve the whole of the marriage in the best way?

" ... every method of preventing conception - not excluding either periodic or absolute abstinence carries with it some negative element of physical evil which the couple more or less seriously feels. This negative element or physical evil can arise under different aspects: account must be taken of the biological, hygienic and psychological aspects, and personal dignity of the spouses, and the possibility of expressing sufficiently and aptly the interpersonal relation or conjugal love. The means to be chosen, where several are possible, is that which carries with it the least possible negative element, according to the concrete situation of the couple." (p. 255)

The existential tradition, based on the actual experience of married people whose voices were finally heard in the deliberations of the commission, has modified the whole context of the issue of contraception.

The strength of the Minority Report is the strength of the papal statements which show how contraception thwarts the physical dimension of the conjugal act. But its weakness is that in the changing climate brought out by the emergence of the existential tradition these arguments have more and more difficulty standing alone. The Minority Report makes the rather remarkable statement: "If we could bring forward arguments which are clear and cogent based on reason alone, it would not be necessary for our commission to exist, nor would the present state of affairs exist in the Church as it is." (Callahan, p. 184)

What would Augustine make of such a statement, or even Pius XI and Pius XII? Have their arguments which they felt were based on reason and even evident and clear reasoning suddenly gone bad, and therefore must we appeal to the Church's teaching authority as if this were a matter beyond the competence of reason? No. Rather, by ignoring the growing existential tradition these old arguments were becoming deprived of their force even for the very men who championed them.

The Majority Report was a remarkable document, but since it had used its energy to allow the existential tradition to finally make its way to the light of day, it did not have the time or strength to show in detail its relationship with the essentialistic tradition. It did not try to show whether a reconciliation was possible on the level of each marital act.

When the reports were delivered to Pope Paul VI he had a choice between the old arguments which had lost much of their concrete sense of conviction, and the new arguments based on the existential tradition. But these new arguments were too young and too intimately bound to experience to make their real strength immediately felt. Nor did they show the Pope in what way this new approach could be related to the old condemnations, so when he asked himself, "Could it not be admitted... that the finality of procreation pertains to the ensemble of conjugal life, rather than to its single acts?" he felt compelled to answer, "...that each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life."

Nor would the Pope have realized that it was just possible that this existential tradition was much stronger and more officially sanctioned than anyone realized, that the existential tradition had already appeared in the midst of the essentialistic tradition but hidden and disguised, for to what dimension of the tradition did rhythm belong?

There are two ways in which we can try to answer this question. First we can see if our analysis of the conjugal act can show us how to distinguish contraception from rhythm or natural family planning. And secondly, we can look at the arguments the popes use to distinguish them.

Let's start with the nature of the conjugal act. First of all, let's consider the physical dimension of the conjugal act. It is clear that contraceptives avoid the generation of new life. But it is equally clear that natural family planning does it, as well, and intends to do it. In neither case is there the generation of new life, and in both cases the explicit intention exists to avoid new life. It seems quite pointless to try to assert that in natural family planning the spouses do not deliberately try to suppress the physical generation of new life, for then there would be no purpose in practicing it at all.

If the physical dimension cannot serve as a criterion between contraception and natural family planning, can the spiritual dimension do better? The spiritual aspect of the marital act is the union and harmony of the spouses that nourish a true home life so the child can reach his full stature as a human being, as we have seen. This aspect can be willed both in the use of natural family planning and contraception. Does natural family planning signify a more total giving on the spiritual plane? We are naturally led to ask, a giving of what? Something purely spiritual? Then how could it be affected by contraception? Something spiritual based on some physical fact? What could that physical fact be? The placing of the seed within the woman? This happens with certain contraceptives, as well. A giving of the seed with an actual orientation towards the generation of new life? That is not present in either case. We cannot see, then, how the spiritual dimension can serve to distinguish natural family planning from contraception.

But let us consider the whole matter further. Perhaps it can be objected that we have prejudiced the whole issue from the beginning by the way we have looked at the nature of the conjugal act. What if we argued that when we talk of the physical and spiritual dimension of this act we are talking about the ends of the act, and though natural family planning and contraceptives have the same morality if we just consider the ends, one uses natural means, and so is moral, while the other uses unnatural means, and therefore is immoral. Then we could say that natural family planning and contraceptives might be the same as far as procreativeness is concerned, but they use different means to come to the same ends, and this makes all the difference. The objection could be phrased more concretely, as follows: in natural family planning procreation is avoided by the use of the conjugal acts in the sterile periods provided by nature, and by continence during the fertile periods, while with contraceptives there is no consideration of this natural pattern, but rather, procreation is avoided artificially. In short, natural family planning exercises the marital act which nothing forbids it to do, and simply abstains, which is, again, within its prerogatives, while in the use of contraceptives the act is exercised at the same time its outcome is thwarted. Then we could conclude that natural family planning uses natural means to achieve its end while contraceptives use unnatural means. Unfortunately, this kind of reasoning leads to a semantic morass. If anything, natural means in accord with nature. A natural means will be one in accord with the nature of the end. In this objection we are supposed to conceive of a situation where the means somehow remains natural, but the nature of the act is thwarted. More concretely, we are supposed to imagine how we exercise a sexual act in natural family planning in order to deliberately thwart its natural end, which is the procreation of new life, and yet still maintain the naturalness of this behavior. The nature of the sexual act resides not in its physical integrity, but in its procreative nature.

Let's imagine I owe you money and I promise to meet you at a certain place and time to pay it back. If I deliberately go to another place at the right time to avoid paying the money to you, you will be justifiably disappointed. But if I go to the appointed place and deliberately choose a time you are not there, you will be equally disappointed in me. The fact that I argue that I was in the right place will certainly not absolve me in your eyes. As far as honoring the obligation to pay the money, being at the wrong place at the right time, or the right place at the wrong time is equally against the fulfillment of my obligations. If I have a procreative intent built into the nature of every marital act, both physically and spiritually, then any time I don't deliberately honor that procreative intent by way of place or time, then I have in some way gone against the nature of that act. Natural family planning and contraceptives from this point of view are equally natural or unnatural. Therefore, we would expect that they should stand or fall together.

But perhaps our reasoning is faulty and can be corrected by the arguments the popes use to distinguish rhythm and contraception. Pius XII seems to

indicate that the use of rhythm differed from contraceptives because in rhythm the couple "...do not impede or prejudice in any way the consummation of the natural act, and its further natural consequences. It is precisely in this that the application of this theory is essentially distinguished from the abuse (the use of contraceptives) already indicated, which consists in the perversion of the act itself." (Address to the Midwives)

The perversion of the act itself that takes place in contraceptives is the thwarting of the physical dimension of the act. But what is "the consummation of the natural act and its further natural consequences"? It cannot be the physical procreativeness of the conjugal act, for then the Pope would be saying we practice rhythm to have children. It means we have put the seed where it is meant to go and have not placed a spacial barrier to procreation. But contraceptives like the pill do the same thing.

Paul VI writes in Humane Vitae:

"If, then, there are serious motives to space out births, which derive from the physical or psychological conditions of husband and wife, or from external conditions, the Church teaches that it is then licit to take into account the natural rhythms immanent in the generative functions, for the use of marriage in the infecund periods only, and in this way to regulate birth without offending the moral principles which have been recalled earlier.

" The Church is coherent with herself when she considers recourse to the infecund periods to be licit, while at the same time condemning, as being always illicit, the use of means directly contrary to fecundation, even if such use is inspired by reasons which may appear honest and serious. In reality, there are essential differences between the two cases: in the former, the married couple make legitimate use of a natural disposition; in the latter, they impede the development of natural processes. It is true that, in the one and the other case, the married couple are concordant in the positive will of avoiding children for plausible reasons, seeking the certainty that offspring will not arrive; but it is also true that only in the former case are they able to renounce the use of marriage in the fecund periods when, for just motives, procreation is not desirable, while making use of it during infecund periods to manifest their affection and to safeguard their mutual fidelity. By so doing, they give proof of a truly and integrally honest love." (No. 16)

We have to analyze carefully the way in which the Pope finds "essential differences" between natural family planning and contraception. He says that "in the former, the married couple make legitimate use of a natural disposition; in the latter they impede the development of natural processes." There is no difficulty in understanding the meaning of "impede the development of natural processes". This is, of course, the traditional argument against contraception. But how should we understand "make legitimate use of a natural disposition"? Is the Pope saying that there is a natural disposition by which nature herself has provided not only times when conception will not take place, because this is obvious, but that this natural disposition is a time that nature has provided for the use of the conjugal act in order that the conjugal act will be non-procreative? If this is what the natural disposition means, how can we say that "every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life"'? Can nature be both procreative and non-procreative at the same time? If nature has a genuine disposition to be non-procreative, then why are we so concerned about thwarting its procreative power? No. The phrase "legitimate use of a natural disposition" uses "natural" in a way different than when we talk about the nature of the marital act.

The Pope continues: "It is true that, in the one and the other case, the married couple are concordant in the positive will of avoiding children for plausible reasons, seeking the certainty that offspring will not arrive." Should we take this to mean that the will and motives of the couple are not the determining factors of the morality of their acts, and instead, biological considerations predominate? Again, the Pope attempts to distinguish between natural family planning and contraception: "but it is also true that only in the former case are they able to renounce the use of marriage in the fecund periods when, for just motives, procreation is not desirable, while making use of it during infecund periods to manifest their affection and to safeguard their mutual fidelity." Is the Pope saying that the couple are able to deliberately intend to avoid procreation and use the marital act to manifest their affection and safeguard their mutual fidelity? Indeed he is, for this is what natural family planning does. But it is also what other kinds of contraceptives can do, as well. Once we clearly intend the act to be non-procreative, we have in some fashion gone against its procreative nature. Leaving the act biologically intact as far as its outer form goes does not change our intent. We cannot distinguish natural family planning from contraception by the abstinence that one entails. The real issue is not when a couple abstains in natural family planning. It is when they do not abstain and use the conjugal act for non-procreative purposes.

The alternations of fertility and non-fertility in a woman's cycle are natural inasmuch as they are found in nature. They are natural, too, in the sense that they are part of the procreative process which culminates in the days of fertility. But to split the fertile days from the infertile days and call the infertile days natural by themselves in a non-procreative sense is to assert nature has two purposes which are at odds with each other, and she creates the sexual dimension of men and women both for procreative and non-procreative purposes. Such an analysis would undermine the papal analysis of the conjugal act itself! There is no indication that nature has non-fertile days without reference to the role in the overall process of fertility. If we hold to such a theory we would be hard pressed to understand the frequent irregularities of women's cycles, especially at menopause when conception can be dangerous, or why this plan of natural sterility has remained hidden so well and for so long, so as to make contraception a problem to begin with. Further, if nature has a plan of natural sterile days, why would it not be permitted by chemical or mechanical means to insist that these days actually remain sterile?

No. There is no biological or moral justification for calling rhythm natural in the sense that the popes are using the word, and certainly not in reference to the nature of the conjugal act.

We saw before how John Paul II condemns contraception for separating the two dimensions of the conjugal act. He goes on to describe how natural family planning differs from this abuse:

"When, instead, by means of recourse to periods of infertility, the couple respect the inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative meanings of human sexuality, they are acting as "ministers" of God's plan and they "benefit from" their sexuality according to the original dynamism of "total" self-giving, without manipulation or alteration.

"In the light of the experience of many couples and of the data provided by the different human sciences, theological reflection is able to perceive and is called to study further the difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle: It is a difference which is much wider and deeper than is usually thought, one which involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality. The choice of the natural rhythms involves accepting the cycle of the person, that is, the woman, and thereby accepting dialogue, reciprocal respect, shared responsibility and self-control. To accept the cycle and to enter into dialogue means to recognize both the spiritual and corporal character of conjugal communion and to live personal love with its requirement of fidelity. In this context the couple comes to experience how conjugal communion is enriched with those values of tenderness and affection which constitute the inner soul of human sexuality in its physical dimension also. In this way sexuality is respected and promoted in its truly and fully human dimension and is never "used" as an "object" that, by breaking the personal unity of soul and body, strikes at God's creation itself at the level of the deepest interaction of nature and person." (Community of the Family, No. 32)

But just how does intending not to have a child respect the "inseparable connection between the unitive and procreative meanings"'? Must contraception and natural family planning involve "two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality"? No. There can be no natural birth control that respects the physical procreative dimension of the conjugal act. Nor is rhythm automatically better at producing the spiritual results of dialogue, reciprocal respect, tenderness, etc., than certain contraceptives.

What is happening here? The popes are trying to justify the approval of rhythm with the same essentialistic language they used to condemn contraceptives and in doing so they literally twist the language out of shape and use natural and nature in two very different ways. The approval of rhythm cannot be justified by an analysis of the conjugal act, but rather it is the result of the existential tradition making itself felt, which leads to a separation between the two dimensions of the conjugal act for the sake, not of hedonism but the health and development of family life.

A brief look at the history of rhythm will make it clear that rhythm is part of the existential dimension of the tradition. From a strict Augustinian point of view rhythm cannot be justified. Augustine, himself, reproaches the Manicheans:

"Is it not you who used to warn us to watch as much as we could the time after purification of the menses when a woman is likely to conceive, and at that time refrain from intercourse, lest a soul be implicated in the flesh?" (Noonan, Contraception, p. 120)

And Noonan comments:

"In the history of the thought of theologians on contraception, it is, no doubt, piquant that the first pronouncement on contraception by the most influential theologian teaching on such matters should be such a vigorous attack on the one method of avoiding procreation accepted by twentieth-century Catholic theologians as morally lawful." (p. 120)

The modern history of rhythm goes back a little more than a century. This fact, alone, is an eloquent commentary on what is supposed to be a natural means of birth control. As science advanced in the 19th century it slowly made progress in understanding the nature of ovulation, and theologians took this scientific information - often defective in its key ingredient of exactly when the fertile days were and attempted to work out its moral implications. Particularly noteworthy was the work of Auguste Joseph Lacomte, who thought that the use of the sterile period could come to the aid of couples who for serious reasons could not have more children, and would otherwise be forced into contraceptive practices. Lacomte's book appeared in 1873 to mixed reviews. It did not escape one of the more hostile reviewers that this was a deliberate prevention of generation, which differed from intercourse during pregnancy or intercourse among the aged, because

in those cases the situation was beyond the control of the married couple. This disagreement led to the decision by the Roman Penitentiary in 1880 which stated that the couple that made use of the sterile period should not be disturbed, leaving it unclear whether they were acting well, or were permitted to act as they did for fear they would fall into the greater sin of contraception.

The lack of any accurate scientific information about the sterile period continued to exist down to the discoveries of Ogino and Knaus in 1930. Impelled by the decisions of the Anglican Church in favor of contraception at the Lambert Conference, and concerned with new questions that had arisen about contraception in Germany, Pius XI came out with his firm statement of condemnation. But he was not dealing explicitly with -the issue of the use of the sterile period. He did speak of intercourse between married people "even though, through natural causes either of time or of certain defects, new life cannot result." But the work of Ogino and Knaus was too new to have been in his mind, and it is not even clear that he was speaking in this passage of the use of the sterile periods rather than intercourse after menopause. Arthur Vermeersch, the noted Roman moral theologian and guiding light behind Casti Connubii, was outspokenly against the idea that the Church now had its own method of thwarting the primary end of marriage. And this makes it even more unlikely that Pius XI was, in fact, trying to make a statement about the morality of rhythm.

With the coming of the Ogino-Knaus method theologians would attempt to justify rhythm by the statements found in Cast Connubii. But this was after the fact. After 1930 it was a new moral question that confronted them. It was no longer an issue of whether it was permitted to use the conjugal act when conception was improbable, but whether it was possible to use the conjugal act when conception was theoretically impossible because the fertile days were known with certainty. There was no unanimity among theologians during the 1930s and 40s. A debate went on about the naturalness of rhythm, and this debate retains for us more than a simply historical interest. It is in the period starting with the discoveries of Ogino and Knaus and ending with the pronouncement of Pius XII in 1951 that we have a historical antecedent to the debates about the morality of contraception that have gone on in the Church since the early 1960s. And a closer look at this time will allow us to see more clearly the emergence of this existential aspect of the Church's tradition of the use of the conjugal act appearing in relationship to the question of rhythm.

It was not at all apparent to the theologians of this time that the use of the sterile periods was a natural act and therefore obviously morally correct. Orville Griese, an American moral theologian, asked himself whether rhythm as a way of life could be considered objectively good or indifferent. He answered that in a way of life "in which sterile days are chosen precisely because they are sterile, and fertile days avoided precisely because they are fertile, the human will does positively and efficaciously exclude the primary purpose of marriage in the use of the marriage right." ("Objective Morality of the Rhythm Practice", p. 477) And he distinguished this practice from that of couples who are sterile due to age or physical defect. For Griese rhythm is per se illicit but can be permitted if there is some excusing cause. Somewhat the same opinion was held by the Louvain theologian Salsman who also felt that the exclusive use of the marital act on days known to be sterile positively excluded the primary end of marriage. The couple not only prescind from generation but positively exclude it. ("Sterilitas Facultativa Licita?", p. 563)

Nor were theologians of this time convinced that the sterile days were in some way natural. Griese thought that the rhythms of fertility and infertility could just as probably be nature's way of aiding fertility as avoiding it for the married couple could then concentrate on those days known to be fertile. (p. 478) John A. Ryan, a noted American moral theologian, who was in favor of the use of rhythm was not convinced by the argument that nature had ordained the sterile period to be used to exclude the fertile period. "The conclusion is not rigorously necessary, for the sterile period might be ordained for other ends. Moreover, the argument suggests a dangerous parallel: nature made possible the frustrative use of the marital act; therefore, it is permitted to married couples." ("The Moral Aspects of Periodical Continence" , p. 30)

It is also interesting to note that the arguments used against rhythm were to become the arguments used against contraception right up to and including Humanae Vitae. The use of the sterile period could lead to egotism, the lessening of conjugal love and even the abortion of an unwanted child, reasoned the Provincial Council of Malines in 1937.

Noonan sums up the state of affairs in 1950 as follows: "Medical doubts, pastoral caution, general suspicion, still surrounded the practice of rhythm two decades after it had been popularized." (p. 445) It is only against this background that we can see the positive advance made by Pius XII when he spoke to the Italian Catholic Society of Midwives in 1951. Though the Pope was using the language of Cast Connubii, he was moved by the concrete problems which were the daily fare of these maternity nurses.

He clearly teaches the legitimacy of rhythm by asserting that a couple can be excused from the positive obligation for procreation, even for the length of the marriage, by serious motives not rarely found of a medical, eugenic, economic and social sort.

But when we come to the actual practice of rhythm, the Pope has made it clear this is, indeed, another case "which ought to be examined more attentively". His reasoning is of the existential kind based on the serious motives that can excuse a couple from procreation. But he never tries to show how rhythm is not a "perversion of the act itself". He glides from the case of a couple who are still open to procreation to the case of a couple who are not, and leaves the impression that they are doing the same thing, a shift that goes unnoticed, and its implications unexamined, and which masks the originality of what the Pope is teaching.

Here is a clear example of evolution in the use of the conjugal act, but still hidden under the old essentialistic language. "Use of the sterile period, once attacked by Augustine when used to avoid all procreation, approved in 1880 for cautious suggestion to onanists, guardedly popularized between 1930 and 1951, was now fully sanctioned. The substantial split between sexual intercourse and procreation, already achieved by the rejection of Augustinian theory, was confirmed in practice." (Noonan, p. 447)

But it certainly wasn't recognized in theory. What we are faced with is a clear, but less than fully conscious, development in the Church's teaching. The reason for the condemnation of contraceptives is framed in an essentialistic language. It is derived from an analysis of the nature of the conjugal act, and so it was almost inevitable that this new development, this full and extensive approval of rhythm, would be framed in the same kind of language. If contraceptives are unnatural, then the temptation exists to show how rhythm is natural within the very same kind of framework. But here is the critical point. What if Pius XII was convinced of the validity of rhythm, but having no other language command, described its validity in the essentialistic language that was traditional, and thus obscured the very significant development that he was inaugurating? What if the approval of rhythm is not the result of an essentialistic analysis of the conjugal act, but is a new and powerful appearance of the existential tradition in which a judgment is made on the basis of the whole married life and the role that sexuality plays in it? Then the approval of rhythm is but the first step towards an evaluation of the question of contraceptives from the point of view of a more existentially oriented morality. The distinction between rhythm and other contraceptives then depends not on some essential difference in their relationship to the fecundity of the sexual act, but a new understanding that is being expressed in the old language. The existential tradition is emerging, but it is emerging in disguise.

From this perspective the contemporary debate contraception looks somewhat different. It is only in 1951 that rhythm arrived definitively on the scene, and once rhythm is approved, the hidden implications of this approval will begin to surface a little more than a decade later when the current debate on contraception accelerates with John Rock's The Time Has Come, and the articles of Janssens, Reuss and van der Marck. Janssens, for example, argues from the approval of rhythm to the approval of the pill. ("Morale Conjugale et Progestogenes") So in a certain way it is Pius XII who opens the debate on contraception. In fact, we might even say that he decided the issue long before Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae!

Contraception does go against the physical procreativeness of the conjugal act, but so does rhythm. And we have not been able to find a way to distinguish one from the other. The outer form of the act can be the same. The inner intent not to have a child, and to will the unitive or spiritual procreativeness of the act can be the same. And the use of the sterile period in rhythm is not natural in the sense of being in accord with the procreative nature of the conjugal act. If we argue the sterile periods are a natural means of avoiding procreation, we are saying it is natural to separate the two dimensions of the conjugal act, so why can't we do it with certain contraceptives instead of with calculations of time and temperature? Rhythm and certain contraceptives should stand or fall together. They are all, in a certain sense, unnatural, and if one is allowed, so should others.

The popes have tried to justify rhythm by appealing to an analysis of the conjugal act, but it does not work. Rhythm gives the surface appearance of being more natural, but this is because we ignore the intent of excluding procreation. The essentialistic tradition under the pressure of the existential tradition has, over the centuries, moved from an Augustinian position, and shifted its attention from actual procreative intent to preserving the outer form of the act. (See G. Egner.) It was relatively easy to do this when the preservation of the outer form, due to the uncertainty of the time of ovulation, seemed to preserve at least the possibility of conception. But

as it becomes clearer that conception is not possible, it becomes clearer, as well, that we are deliberately thwarting, in rhythm, the physical procreativeness of the act. Can we imagine that a further perfecting of natural family planning is a solution to the moral question of contraception? Given the difficulties that exist in all kinds of contraception, including natural family planning as it actually exists now, such a more advanced natural family planning method would find a wide audience that would extend beyond Catholic circles, just as the current natural family planning does to a limited degree now. But what we are talking about in natural family planning in final analysis are the benefits and drawbacks of another form of contraception. To say that some form of rhythmic use of the conjugal act could be both psychologically better and medically safer than spacial devices or the pill is not to really deal with the central moral issue of contraception, which is the separation of the two dimensions of the conjugal act. In this regard we should not overlook Bernard Häring's response to Humanae Vitae, "The Inseparability of the Unitive-Procreative Functions of the Marital Act".