Then he goes on to try to distinguish this situation from rhythm:

"Nor is the practice of rhythm to avoid conception in any way irreverent, because the existence of rhythm - that is to say, the fact that conception is limited to a short period - is itself a God-given institution." (p. 37-8)

Again we notice how arguments based on the existential tradition appear, i.e., intercourse during pregnancy, and it is not clear why in contraception the couple cannot will the "actualization of the mutual self-donation of the spouses." Nor is it clear in what way we can call the existence of rhythm "a God-given institution". In a later section von Hildebrand amplifies this last thought:

"...it is definitely allowed expressly to avoid conception when the conjugal act takes place only in the God-given infertile time - that is, only by means of the rhythm method and for legitimate reasons... We see that only during relatively brief intervals has God Himself linked the conjugal act to the creation of a man. Hence the bond, the active tearing apart of which is a sin, is realized only for a short time in the order of things ordained by God Himself." (p. 47)

We may respectfully ask, did God decide in 1930 that He would finally make this institution known through Ogino and Knaus so men could find His will in calculations of time and temperature? And did He decide to make it known in the rather unsuccessful calendar rhythmic form? And did He decide that for many couples He would make it very difficult to really know how to make use of His institution because of irregular cycles?

3. Grisez, Boyle, Finnis, and May in "Every Marital Act Ought to be Open to New Life", describe how natural family planning can, itself, be contralife if a couple chooses it as another form of contraception. (quotes and page numbers from prepublication draft of article)

"Even when based on good reasons, the contraceptive choice by its very definition is contralife; it is a choice to prevent the beginning of the life of a possible person. It is a choice to do something, with the intent that the baby not be, as a means to a further end: that the good consequences of the baby's not-coming-to-be will be realized and the bad consequences of the baby's coming to be will be prevented. The noncontraceptive choice of NFP differs. It is a choice not to do something-namely, not to engage in possibly fertile sexual intercourse-with the intent that the bad consequences of the baby's coming to be will be avoided, and with the acceptance as side effects of both the baby's not-coming-to-be, and the bad consequence of his or her not-coming-to-be. In this choice and in the acceptance of its side effects, there is no contralife will. The baby who might come into being is never projected and rejected." (p. 22-23)

A little later they say,

"Couples who choose to practice NFP do consider what the future will be like if they have another baby. They foresee certain bad effects-for example, they will not be able to fulfill both their present responsibilities and their new ones, and so judge that they should not assume new ones. So, they choose to abstain." (p. 23)

Later they say, in "the non-contraceptive choice of NFP, the choice is to not-cause-the-side-effects-of-the-baby's-coming-to-be by abstaining from causing the baby to come to be. Those who make this choice precisely do not want to cause the baby, but they do not choose the baby's-not-coming-to-be, although they do accept that not-coming-to-be as a side effect of what they intend... Thus, there is a real and very important difference between not wanting to have a baby.. and not wanting the baby one might have..." (p. 24-5)

The crux of their argument seems to reside in the differences between those who choose to do something and those who choose not to do something. The couple choosing NFP rightly "choose to abstain", but the heart of NFP is not when couples abstain but when they do not abstain and choose to use the conjugal act for non-physically procreative purposes. Nor is it clear why "not wanting to have a baby" is different from "not wanting to have a baby one might have", or how we can call the not-coming-to-be a side effect when it is the purpose of practicing NFP to begin with.

4. Brian Shanley in "The Moral Difference Between Natural Family Planning and Contraception" writes:

"What distinguishes an act of contraceptive intercourse from an act of non-contraceptive intercourse is that the former involves the choice to do something before, during, or after the act which destroys the possibility of conception precisely because it is believed that such a choice will indeed negate the possibility of conception." (p. 50)

And a little later,

"The act of contraception embodies the intention of avoiding conception and so makes the coital act a different kind of act (anti-generative) from that which would result if that intention were not operative." (p. 51)

Then he distinguishes this contraceptive act from natural family planning:

"Non-contraceptive intercourse reveals a different structure. It is an intrinsically generative kind of act both physically and intentionally. There may be a further intention to avoid conception (as could be the case in NFP), but the act itself does not embody the present intention to avoid conception as is the case when there is interference by artificial birth control. The further intention to avoid conception does not cause infertility since the act is found to be infertile on its own. The intention to avoid conception is manifested in the determination to avoid intercourse during the woman's fertile period, but this choice does nothing to the sexual intercourse that is chosen during infertile periods to render it anti-generative." (p. 5 1)

It is puzzling how an act in natural family planning which we intend to be non-procreative and is, indeed, because of our planning non-procreative, can be called an "intrinsically generative kind of act both physically and intentionally". And when the author says, "The further intention to avoid conception does not cause infertility since the act is found to be infertile on its own", we might note that in actual fact the act is infertile, but this is different from saying nature intends the act to be infertile so we can use the conjugal act in a way it will be infertile. The days that are infertile in a woman's cycle are days in which nature is working diligently to prepare the egg and move it to the proper place, and after the fertile days remove it so a new egg can be prepared. Should we call these days devoted to preparing for fertility days which nature intends to be infertile, as if she wants to thwart her procreative designs, or should we call them days which are accidentally infertile because of the nature of human fertility ?

5. Joseph Boyle in "Contraception and Natural Family Planning" writes:

"It is clear, moreover, that NFP achieves its purpose in a way that is essentially different from contraceptive intercourse. In practicing NFP a couple adopt a policy to have sexual intercourse at infertile times and to avoid it at fertile times. This policy involves no intention to prevent an act of intercourse from being procreative.

"Refraining from intercourse is not contraceptive intercourse, since it is not intercourse at all. Moreover, refraining from intercourse has a different intentional relation to the good of procreation than contraceptive intercourse has. In the latter case one does what one believes to be a potentially procreative act and also acts to insure that the procreative potential is not realized. This is acting against the procreative good. In NFP, however, one achieves one's intention to avoid children by foregoing the act that one believes would be procreative; one does not necessarily act against this or any other good by refraining from acting for it." (p. 313)

And a little later,

"Thus, the refraining from intercourse that is involved in NFP does not involve the anti-procreative intention of contraceptive intercourse. Neither do the acts of intercourse in which a couple engage during infertile periods have this intention. Since these acts are believed not to be fertile, nothing is done to any of them to render them infertile. The other goods of marriage are quite legitimately pursued in these acts." (p. 313)

If natural family planning "involves no intention to prevent an act of intercourse from being procreative", just why do people practice it at all? Certainly, "refraining from intercourse is not contraceptive intercourse", but the real purpose of natural family planning is not refraining, but insuring that the conjugal act is not procreative. How can an act of intercourse in the infertile period not have an antiprocreative intention, since that is why the act was chosen for that time?

"Updating the encyclical's consequentialist argument is not a difficult task. Its projected scenario has become a reality and the result is worse than the projection. Abortion is now widespread, teenage pregnancy continues to increase and the institution of marriage has further broken down." (p. 28-29)

Elizari cites Chiavacci to the same effect:

"Chiavacci diverges from HV in one important respect. The encyclical, basing itself on the deontological argument (the nature of the conjugal act itself requires that it be open to procreation), assigns an absolute value to the natural/artificial distinction; its teleologic argument (the harmful effects of artificial birth-control) is secondary. Chiavacci, conceding that the deontological argument has no value, makes the teleological primary as well as changing its context and content: the moral preference for the natural would be based, he says, on that "broader standard of ecological preoccupation which, at all levels, is present to mankind."" (p. 34)

Let us leave aside Coffey's contention that a consequentialist argument would make Noonan's argument irrelevant. Any defense of the encyclical cannot ignore the fact it is based on natural law arguments and consider the validity of these arguments irrelevant. Is this argument from consequences itself valid? It would only be valid if there were a necessary causal connection between contraception and, for example, premarital sex. And this connection would have to be based on the severing of the unitive aspect of the conjugal act from any relationship to procreation. But as we have seen, the unitive dimension is itself procreative. In the case of premarital sexuality is it valid to say that contraception is a direct cause of it? If we examine the nature of the conjugal act we can see why premarital sex is wrong. If the couple have a child, they are not in a position to adequately care for it. They do a disservice to the child and to themselves, for they may be forced to take on responsibilities they are not ready for, and they run the risk of disorienting their lives. If they do not have a child, is it valid to argue that they have harmed no one? No. They are, in the exercise of the conjugal act, either activating or suppressing its unitive dimension. If they are suppressing the unitive dimension with its mutual love, they are trivializing this sacred mystery of union, and reducing their capacity to enter fully into it later. If they are willing this unitive love, they are binding themselves together in a special shared life in view of the child to come. They are intimately knitting their lives together to create the optimal situation in which the child ought to be born. If they leave each other, even if they intended to from the beginning, they rip this shared life apart which can be both painful and psychologically harmful.

Does contraception cause premarital sex? No. In actual fact many teenagers who engage in premarital sex do not use any contraceptives, a fact which leads to the U.S.'s alarmingly high rate of teenage pregnancy and abortion.

What the author's argument amounts to is that there is what is loosely called a "contraceptive mentality" which is destructive to genuine sexual values. But it is not demonstrated that the practice of contraception has a necessary connection to this contraceptive mentality. Just as the use of contraceptives in situations where rhythm is appropriate is not a general solution to the problem of the married state, the use of contraceptives is not necessarily implicated in a wide variety of sexual problems. We should not make the current widespread problems in sexual morality a new argument from totality that runs: the Pope feared bad consequences from the use of contraceptives, and bad things have, indeed, occurred. Therefore contraception is rightly condemned. We must demonstrate contraception directly causes the bad consequences. Otherwise, if natural family planning is continually perfected and becomes more accurate, simpler in application and with less time of abstinence, then someday someone could argue that it, too, leads to bad consequences, for it has the capacity to be abused.

Nor is it appropriate to link abortion to contraception, as if the large number of Catholic married people who use contraceptives are incipient abortionists. This is loose language which is both inaccurate and offensive.

It is entirely possible to agree with the Church's teaching on most points of sexual morality and still disagree with its condemnation of contraception.

Michael Novak writes,

"To my knowledge, there is only one point at which, in all conscience, I hold a view at variance with that of the teaching authority of the church: the condemnation of artificial contraceptives." (Confession of a Catholic, p. 118)

The principle of totality expressed by the Majority Report has been criticized as leading to a destruction of Catholic sexual morality. But if we see it as an expression of the existential tradition, and if we connect it with an analysis of the nature of the conjugal act, it is clear that these bad consequences are not intrinsic to the principle of totality understood in this way. When they say that generous and prudent parenthood "does not then depend upon the direct fecundity of each and every particular act", we can read these words in two very different ways. If we take an essentialistic perspective, bolstered by Pope Paul's "every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life", we can say that if each act does not have to have a direct relationship to procreation, then what is to prevent someone from using one of these acts in adultery, and so forth. But this is to misunderstand both the procreative nature of the unitive aspect of the conjugal act and the existential thrust of the Majority Report. They are not arguing about each act. They are saying in actual fact married people maintain a generous fecundity even though each act is not directly procreative. This is really to say that it is permissible to use the conjugal act for non-physically procreative purposes, as the approval of rhythm clearly indicates. But this line of criticism does indicate how important it is to ground an existential argument from totality on an analysis of the nature of the conjugal act.

21: ON INTERPRETING HUMANAE VITAE

In his post-Humanae Vitae, L'existence humaine et l'amour, subtitled "In order to better understand the encyclical Humanae Vitae", he is even more incisive on this vital distinction.

Writing about the encyclical's statement, "every marital act ought to remain open to the transmission of life", he comments, "How, it is asked, can it be said on the one hand that every matrimonial act ought to remain open to the transmission of life, and justify, on the other, the choice and use of infertile times for certain of these acts?" (p. 93)

And Martelet answers, "If this will not to have a child then does not exclude a properly conjugal encounter it is because every matrimonial act has not to remain open to the transmission of life." (p. 93-94)

And to reconcile this apparent contradiction, instead of saying "every marital act should remain open to the transmission of new life", he would say, "every marital act which of itself is found open to the transmission of life ought to remain so." (L'existence, p. 94) And instead of an absolute link between the unitive and procreative dimension, Martelet writes of a link which "is on the contrary rhythmic by reason of the periods of the cycle." (p. 94-95) Therefore, he would read Humanae Vitae as saying, "when the union is normally able to become fecund, then it is not permitted to impede that it be so. The bond which associates the union and the procreation is not always organically assured. But when it is periodically given, it is indissoluble and contraception then consists in destroying it." (p. 95)

Noonan in a 1986 addition to his Contraception draws them out. We can speak "on the one hand, of condemned methods of depriving the unitive act of procreative power and, on the other hand, of lawful means employed to assure the natural regularity of the rhythm of fertility and sterility." (p. 547)

"In the light of this distinction, the achievement of the natural rhythm of sterility may be accomplished by therapeutic agents which affect the hormones and are indirectly sterilizing or by other means which assure sterility at the times nature intends sterility. In each case the good intended and achieved is not mere menstrual regularity but the actual rhythm of fertile and sterile periods which God has designed for human beings. If God intends the human sexual act to be fruitful, He does not intend it to be fruitful thirty days a month. The bond between the expression of love and the power to procreate is absolute when it occurs, but rhythmic in its occurrence." (p. 547)

He continues a little later,

"This rhythm of probable fertility followed by probable sterility is what God has inscribed in our natures. We may seek to assure it by hormonal regulation. May we not assure it by other means? In using them we intend to achieve the good of this normal rhythm. Such means may of course be employed only at such times in the cycle in which fertility is not normally intended by nature. The regulative effect then intended will not be the disruption of the union of natural procreative power and the conjugal act, but the restoration of the rhythm of fertility-sterility, which is the divine plan for mankind." (p. 548)

The conclusion is:

"At the most on four days a month is the union of intercourse and fertility normal. If we seek to understand the divine plan from what nature has given humanity, we must infer that it is for a brief part of any life that fertility is intended, and that nature has designed man so that many acts of intercourse will be sterile. If sterility is secured at all times save the fertile time intended by nature, the natural design is secured." (p. 549)

Is this what Martelet meant, or Pope Paul? Or more to the point, does this conclusion flow from the premises stated in the encyclical? Noonan lists eight objections that can be brought against this position, of which we will examine the first two: (1) it allows acts that intend to impede procreation, (2) is a periodic direct sterility.

What allows Noonan to refute the first objection are the contrasting principles enunciated in Humanae Vitae itself. He argues, like Martelet, that it is not possible to take literally "every conjugal act whatsoever must be intrinsically (per se) open to the transmission of life" (HV 11, Noonan, p. 550) because the encyclical says, "In fact, as is known by usage, new life does not arise from every conjugal coupling. For God has so wisely disposed natural laws and the times of fecundity that they themselves intrinsically (per se) put intervals between acts of generation." (HV 11, Noonan, p. 550)

And he comments,

"According to the encyclical then, there are times which are intrinsically sterile, but every conjugal act must be intrinsically open to transmitting life. Is a conjugal act at a time which is intrinsically sterile intrinsically open? Not in any literal sense. Are the conjugal acts of spouses whose sterility has been established, or the conjugal acts of a pregnant spouse, intrinsically open to the transmission of life? Literally, no. They are closed from transmitting life by physical causes. Yet they are entirely lawful. It is clear then that, concretely, not every act need to be open to the transmission of life; and it is inferable that to preserve the sterility of times which are intrinsically sterile is unobjectionable. To secure such sterility is not to act against the divine design but to cooperate with it." (p. 550

The condemnation of a direct sterilization for a period has to be read in light of the encyclical's acceptance of rhythm.

"The reason a sterilizing act is wrong is that it asserts man's dominion over the generative process and effects the disruption of the natural nexus. But when steps are taken to assure that intercourse is not fertile in a period not intended by nature to be fertile, man acts in subordination to the divine plan and does not effect any disruption of the sacred link between love and fertility." (p. 551)

What is happening? Once Martelet takes the contrasting statements in Humanae Vitae seriously, then he is led to his principle of rhythmic fertility. But once he does this he will be hard pressed to prevent Noonan from taking his own arguments and extending them into a defense of the use of certain contraceptives to insure the "God-given" infertile days actually remaining infertile.

Certainly, if we interpret Humanae Vitae as Noonan has done, the objections of most people against the encyclical will be assuaged. If married people could be in accord with the Church's teaching by means of a safe method of birth regulation that entail four days a month abstinence, this would seem a small price to pay. This solution is almost like the dream of a perfect natural family planning program in which it would be certain that on the supposedly infertile days no conception would take place, and abstinence would be limited to the actual fertile days. But in either case, these practical and pastorally oriented solutions still rest on the ambiguities embedded in the text of Humanae Vitae and in the whole history of the question, that is, on the contrasting essentialistic and existential aspects of the tradition, that we have been examining all along.

Martelet's principle of rhythmic fertility is not a real answer to the difficulties of Humanae Vitae. It suffers from the same objections raised against the work of von Hildebrand and others that we examined before: the difficulty of calling it a God-given institution, the assumption nature has infertile days for the express purpose of having the conjugal act remain unprocreative all the while it is diligently working to make the woman fertile, etc. Does the real issue of contraception boil down to four days of fertility that must at all costs be "respected" while we try as hard as possible to make sure they will not be fertile? This kind of solution is more symbolic than real. It is a sign that there is an irreducible procreation meaning inscribed in the very nature of the conjugal act. But it would be better to frankly admit that avoiding the fertile days is meant to thwart the physically procreative aspect of the conjugal act. Otherwise, we will sink deeper and deeper into a semantic morass, and a biological view of natural law which becomes what we discover with advanced techniques rather than the clearly generative nature of the conjugal act.

How much does this admission and the solution I am proposing actually depart from Humanae Vitae? First of all, it affirms the view of the nature of the conjugal act found in the encyclical, which is drawn in part from the Council.

"By means of the reciprocal personal gift of self, proper and exclusive to them, husband and wife tend towards the communion of their beings in view of mutual personal perfection, to collaborate with God in the generation and education of new lives." (No. 8)

"And finally, this love is fecund, for it is not exhausted by the communion between husband and wife, but is destined to continue, raising up new lives. 'Marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordained toward the begetting and educating of children. Children are really the supreme gift of marriage and contribute very substantially to the welfare of their parents'." (No. 9) In these few sentences can be found the substance of what we labored to express about the procreative nature of both aspects of the conjugal act and how these two dimensions are meant to be united.

This understanding of the nature of the conjugal act should guide the conduct of married people; "...they must conform their activity to the creative intention of God, expressed in the very nature of marriage and of its acts, and manifested by the constant teaching of the Church." (No. 10)

And what does this natural law say?

".. 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)

"That teaching, often set forth by the Magisterium, 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. By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its ordination towards man's most high calling to parenthood." (No. 12)

From this analysis of the nature of the conjugal act flows the reason why contraception is wrong.

"Hence, one who reflects well must also recognize that a reciprocal act of love, which jeopardizes the disponibility to transmit life which God the Creator, according to particular laws, inserted therein, is in contradiction with the design constitutive of marriage, and with the will of the author of life. To use this divine gift destroying, even if only partially, its

meaning and its purpose is to contradict the nature both of man and of woman and of their most intimate relationship, and therefore it is to contradict also the plan of God and his will." (No. 13)

All this, I believe this solution embraces. But it understands this plan of God as the plan that existed at the beginning, a state of original integrity in which every marital act was intended to be procreative in both dimensions, but which now is not readily realizable by men and women in a fall-redeemed world. This, of course, is the existential theme.

While this is not explicitly present in the encyclical, it is implicit in it, although in a veiled manner.

Pope Paul writes:

"These acts, by which husband and wife are united in chaste intimacy, and by means of which human life is transmitted, are, as the Council recalled, 'noble and worthy', and they do not cease to be lawful if, for causes independent of the will of husband and wife, they are foreseen to be infecund, since they always remain ordained towards expressing and consolidating their union." (No. 11)

But he makes this lawfulness of the non-physically procreative act rest on "causes independent of the will of husband and wife" and continues,

"In fact, as experience bears witness, not every conjugal act is followed by a new life. God has wisely disposed natural laws and rhythms of fecundity which, of themselves, cause a separation in the succession of births." (No. 11)

This, of course, is setting the stage for rhythm:

"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." (No. 16) And he ends this paragraph with the citation of Pius XII's address to the midwives.

Then he continues:

"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." (No. 16)

And the Pope then continues to distinguish rhythm and contraceptives in the way that we have seen before. This kind of analysis brings in its wake all the objections we have been examining throughout this study. The Pope, following Pius XII and his use of the essentialistic language, ends up by saying that nature sanctions the use of the conjugal act - always open to the transmission of life - exactly when nature insures that this act will not be fertile.

What has prevented the Pope from breaking with this old language? He feared that it would mean the destruction of the natural foundations of the conjugal act, which the Church has always upheld, and would lead to sexual immorality. Further, the existential language was too new and too undeveloped to assuage these fears.

But what would happen if we kept the natural law foundation of the encyclical intact, but rephrased the approval of rhythm? Then we could say that in certain situation married people are faced with conflicts like those described by the Council. In these situations they realize that it is not possible to observe the full integrity of the conjugal act. Therefore, they act in such a way that while mutual love, which itself is procreative, is served, the generation of new life is excluded. This is, in essence, what the Church is approving in rhythm, but it has not been able to come out and clearly say it yet. If this interpretation is correct, we have no need to make rhythm a God

given institution and try to demonstrate that it respects the physically procreative character of the conjugal act so each marital act is open to the transmission of life.

Rather, we can see how the Church's teaching refers to the original integral nature of the act, which integral nature is always acting in each marriage by way of model and goal, even though it is not possible to legislate how its influence through the grace of God will make itself felt. Then we will

escape the semantic difficulties of justifying rhythm in terms of the nature of the conjugal act. What becomes the concrete norm that governs the use of the conjugal act when the couple intend not to conceive a new child? They have to ask themselves in the sight of God whether this use serves to strengthen the love they have for each other and for their children, and the life they all share together.

Does this kind of interpretation of Humanae Vitae imply a favoring of contraceptives over natural family planning? It has been my intention all along not to enter into the question of what ways of avoiding conception are best from a medical and psychological point of view. This is the reason for the use of vague terms like "certain contraceptives". There is much to be said for natural family planning in its sympto-thermal form. By avoiding physical and hormonal intervention, it avoids the problems associated with these prolonged interventions. It is safe in itself, inexpensive, and in its strict post-ovulatory method it can be highly effective. From a psychological point of view it encourages communication between husband and wife, which hopefully spreads to other areas of the marriage, and the abstinence involved can serve to revitalize sexual relations. Natural family planning may well become perfected even more, and go on to become the method of choice for many married people, Catholic or not.

But it is important not to confuse its good qualities with its morality in relationship to other means of avoiding conception. A couple, who with prudent medical advice, choose another non-abortive method of avoiding conception, should not be made to feel that they have violated the moral law any more than those who use natural family planning. In both cases the emphasis should not be on the means to avoid conception, but the love that the conjugal act is meant to help grow.

Rhythm and certain other means of contraception are not related to each other as the natural means to the unnatural, but rather both are subordinated to the original integrative nature of the conjugal act and the life to come in which there will be no exercise of the conjugal act. The abstinence that rhythm entails can allow us to glimpse these other realities, but it is only a partial and inverted reflection of them because it too uses the conjugal act in deliberately non-physically procreative ways. The debate on contraception does not end with the selection of various means, but opens out onto the mystery of marriage and sexuality in the light of the history of salvation. Even if we discover an ideal means of avoiding contraception which is safe, effective and morally approved by the Church, we are still faced with the struggle to create a good marriage and find the appropriate way to exercise the conjugal act here and now. The physical possibility of exercising the conjugal act without conceiving a child and the general moral licitness of acting in this way only set the stage for a married couple's decision that for them here and now it is either better to exercise it or better to abstain from it. The sexual act, as central as it is to married life, possesses no automatic efficacy and must be subordinated to the love between the spouses and their journey towards God. It is true that the use of certain contraceptives can lead to self-indulgence and a deadening of spiritual values, but rhythm holds out the same possibilities, though diminished, as the popes have noted on various occasions. The ultimate solution to the problem of contraception lies not only in the proper means, but the subordination of these means to psychological and spiritual values.

Another way of putting the matter is that abstinence often appears as a rather poor solution, and that every choice of a way of avoiding conception has its drawbacks, and finally when the non-procreative exercise of the conjugal act does become possible, it does not always have the good effects we would hope for. We are left with our slow pilgrimage in this fallen-redeemed world during which we try to love our spouse and children as best we can. This is the subject matter of a theology and spirituality of marriage, and it goes far beyond the question of contraception itself.

22: SUMMARY AND FINAL CONCLUSIONS

In Part III an examination of the post-Humanae Vitae literature led us to reaffirm the conclusion that there is no way to distinguish rhythm from certain contraceptives on essentialistic grounds, and that this essentialistic-existential solution serves as a clarification and reconciliation of the principles enunciated in Humanae Vitae.

As we progressed, each new stage of this journey nuanced earlier assertions and placed the question of contraception in a wider context. Our attention shifts from a focus on the individual conjugal act to how this act becomes a symbol, a microcosm, of the whole history of salvation. This wider perspective gives us the necessary vantage point from which we can integrate the elements of a solution to the problem of contraception which have appeared during the course of the discussions of the issue.