Pope's appeal for bigger families

The Church in Europe is facing a crisis in vocations. The number of priests and religious has fallen dramatically, not to mention the fact that thousands have left the priesthood. This phenomenon can be traced to a number of reasons, not least that fewer young people are now prepared to make a lifelong commitment to celibacy and, in the case of religious, to vows of poverty and obedience, though such vows are not applied as strictly as they were before.

Another reason for the lack of vocations is no doubt the laicisation of Western society, where religion is given much less importance than it used to be, although one must admit that the process of secularisation began a long time ago in traditionally staunchly Catholic countries like Spain, Portugal and Italy. Indeed anti-clericalism in these countries was, and still is, quite prevalent.

Then there is another no less important factor which is having a direct effect on vocations: the dramatic fall in birth rates. Up to half a century ago families in Catholic countries, unlike those in Northern Protestant countries, were large; families with fewer than five or six children were considered an exception.

The main reason for this was undoubtedly the Church's teaching on sexual morality in marriage. "Sex or 'the marriage act' is solely for the procreation of children," it was constantly stressed in confessionals.

In the Fifties and Sixties things and mentalities began to change. Catholics, like Protestants, were becoming aware that couples could have a regular sex life without having to end with a new arrival every two years or so. The advantages of contraception were being appreciated even by Catholics, if only the Church would change its teaching.

The topic dominated discussions even within the Church and there was a feeling that the Pope might perhaps finally bow to pressure and public opinion, and declare that it was not sinful to control births by contraceptive methods. As is well known, this problem caused Pope Paul VI a great deal of stress.

However, in spite of the huge pressure piled on him, even by some Catholic theologians, the Pope issued his encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968, which confirmed the teachings of the Church and announced that the "marriage act" should always remain open to life. Married couples could use the safe period but not artificial means of contraception, such as the Pill or condoms.

Yet the size of families in Catholic countries, including our own, has continued to shrink to such an extent that now everybody is talking of crises of all sorts, including the sustainability of pensions in 20-25 years' time. It was no surprise therefore to read that Pope Benedict XVI has urged Catholics to have more children.

Addressing some 15,000 people during his weekly Vatican audience a couple of weeks ago, the Pope said that having children "is a gift that brings life and well being to society".

The Pontiff told his audience that the decline in the number of births "deprives some nations of freshness and energy, and of hopes for the future incarnate in children".

It will be recalled that his predecessor, the lamented John Paul II, also treated the subject a couple of years ago. In his address to the Italian Parliament the Polish Pope urged Italians to have more children and to reverse the alarming decline in the peninsula's birth rate, which he described as "another grave threat that bears upon the future of this country, one which is already conditioning its life and its capacity for development".

One wonders whether such appeals by the heads of the Church will have any bearing on Catholic families and succeed in convincing them to give priorities to children before any other consideration.