Known but misunderstood?

The 35th anniversary of Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae is being commemorated in several parts of the world. This was perhaps the most controversial encyclical letter published by a Pope during the last century.

The encyclical brought much dissent in its wake. The media controversy and the explosion of dissent and disagreement among laity, clergy, theologians and even some bishops following the Pope's July 25, 1968, landmark encyclical meant that many people stopped listening to the Church and made up their own minds, looking elsewhere for guidance.

To this day many people - even devout Catholics and theologians - say that they do not agree with its teaching. We do not know the figures for Malta but the disagreement index for the United States reaches 80 per cent.

But do people know what the encyclical really says? We think that when you dig deeper you find that they don't really know what the Church teaching is. Humanae Vitae teaches that the marriage act should be open for life but it also teaches that marital relationships have to be seen in the context of responsible parenthood.

Whenever one of these aspects is emphasised at the expense of the other aspect the teaching of Humanae Vitae tends to be twisted. Following Humanae Vitae many episcopal conferences published pastoral guidelines to help the faithful enlighten their consciences with Church teaching and take decisions which respect this and the circumstances that they are living in.

We think that the pastoral dimensions of the teachings of the Church are not always well communicated. The Cana Movement is doing sterling work in this area. They have a holistic approach, which includes teaching about natural family planning (NFP). Is their work in the area well known? Can we say that the same biases that exist against NFP overseas do not also exist in Malta?

Dr Martha Garza, an obstetric endocrinologist and infertility specialist from San Antonio in the US, says that in her opinion the medical community in general is "biased against NFP", and that the method was never mentioned in any of her medical training.

She says that pharmaceutical companies, which earn millions of dollars from the sale of birth control pills, have exerted considerable influence over medical schools and their graduates. That's unfortunate, Garza adds, because "the widespread use of the birth control pill has been linked to the rising incidence of breast cancer", although the secular media has chosen to ignore this trend.

Is this the situation over here? We ask because we do not know. Will some sector of the local Church take any particular initiative to commemorate the 35th anniversary of Humanae Vitae? Will there be seminars or study days, or will the anniversary pass unnoticed?