Family Morality: The Vatican Straightens Out Some Things

Those who thought that the encyclical Humanae Vitae, promulgated in 1968, was definitively buried, are in for bitter disappointment: the Holy See has in fact just published a text which reaffirms the traditional teaching of the Church in matters of contraception and birth control. Even if it is not a papal document, it has the merit of asserting and restating certain truths.

The document, presented on May 30 and which has so far received little coverage in the Catholic press, sounds the alarm about the drop in the birth rate, and raises concerns about the promotion given to methods of drug-assisted procreation, which the Church considers to be “morally unacceptable.”

It must be said that the Global Pact for the Family, prefaced by Pope Francis, was not drawn up by the progressivist experts of the Pontifical Academy for Life: the text emanates from the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and the Dicastery for the Laity, Family, and Life. A detail that very likely shows the battle that is being played out within the leonine walls on the terrain of Christian morality.

The text, of which some developments are sometimes a little difficult to read for the uninitiated, has the advantage of having sections entitled “challenges,” “suggestions,” and “specific actions,” which allow a quick return to the concrete.

In several places, the Roman document encourages infertile couples to consider adoption, urging Catholic universities and research centers to promote this option in order to avoid recourse to artificial methods of reproduction deemed immoral.

The Pact promotes the ideal of Christian marriage, hoping that spouses will have large families, suggesting that schools and parents train adolescents with a Christian spirit in the mysteries of life and in mastering their own bodies: basic truths for convinced Catholics, but it is good to hear this during this period of confusion the Church is going through.

The State also has its role to play, underlines the document, enjoining it to carry out a family policy worthy of the name, by supporting recently married couples economically, through tax reductions or tax credits: this is what is already happening in certain countries like Hungary, accused of being an “illiberal” regime by a Europe which does not really have any advice to give in matters of democracy.

The question of couples going through difficulties of all kinds is addressed in order to find concrete ways to avoid the scourge of divorce.

We can rejoice in an official text from the Vatican which, although it may not meet all expectations, nevertheless makes it possible to set the course for a Catholic family morality worthy of the name.