The renewal of Western culture is extremely dependent upon authentic renewal within the Catholic Church. Everyone who wants to replace our contemporary culture of death with a true culture of life needs to face up to some basic realities. Some of these are simply statements of fact; others call for action. Authentic renewal within the Church requires both the recognition of current realities and systematic action. Such renewal will not happen without every reasonable effort within the Church.
What follows makes no claim to be a complete agenda for authentic renewal within the Church. Some might want to place more emphasis on liturgical renewal. I can only point out that every previous heresy in the Church occurred when the Liturgy was in Latin or Greek. Further, a church full of adulterers, contraceptors, fornicators, and sodomites singing Gregorian chant would not be a church renewed. There is no need to treat different agendas as sequential, but some issues are truly matters of life and death.
• There will be no stopping abortion without a rebirth of chastity. Those who think they can stop abortion without a rebirth of chastity are wishful thinkers. They need to revisit Planned Parenthood v Casey, the 1992 U. S. Supreme Court decision that essentially said the country needs abortion in order to continue its lifestyle of contraception, fornication and adultery.
• There will be no rebirth of premarital chastity without a rebirth of marital chastity. The sexual revolution started with the acceptance of unnatural forms of birth control for married couples. It is also easier for married couples to practice chastity than it is for singles. For married couples chastity involves only periodic, not total, abstinence from the marriage act when practicing systematic NFP.
• There will be no renewal of Catholic marriages without a widespread rejection of marital contraception. Now that the Catholic rate of contraception equals that of non-Catholic America, so does its divorce rate.
• There will be no widespread rejection of marital contraception without a widespread acceptance of natural family planning. This should be self-evident.
• There will be no widespread acceptance of natural family planning without a concerted and sustained effort on the part of Catholic bishops and priests to do what they can to help Catholics form their consciences according to authentic Catholic teaching.
• In the current situation of Catholics with culturally formed consciences, that means that bishops and priests need to exercise their leverage so that Catholics will have every opportunity to form their consciences according to the truths about love, marriage and human sexuality taught by Christ through his Church.
• Bishops and priests have the God-given authority to require engaged couples to take a full course on natural family planning as a normal part of preparation for marriage, and they need to do so.
• Such a course should be the right kind of course, not just a course on “Catholic birth control.”
Next week: Natural Family Planning: the right kind of course
John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant