Pope Paul VI
One
Today is the Feast of Pope St. Paul VI.
Paul VI was the Pope from 1963 to 1978 who guided the Church through the Second Vatican Council and who had the wisdom, foresight, and courage to give the world arguably the most controversial and prophetic teaching on the transmission of human life, Humane Vitae, on July 25, 1968. He reminded the world that God designed humans so that marriage sex and babies belong together and in that order. Keep them together and in that order, individuals and society flourish. Tear these three apart and individuals and society will be torn apart.
Contraception allows us to tear these three apart with devasting effects. I didn’t understand this and most people don’t. That’s why it’s important for us to reflect on what Paul VI foresaw and why.
He anticipated that if we give in to widespread use of contraception it would result in the lowering of morality that would result in the destruction of marriage and family. We have experienced that in the sexual revolution in which men would lose respect for women and treat them as objects for pleasure resulting in a decline of marriage and a rise in divorce.
He foresaw that Governments would use contraception and abortion as weapons to control other countries demanding that those countries accept the policies of contraception, sterilization, and abortion or they would not receive economic aid.
And finally, he foresaw that people would come to believe they had unlimited power over their own bodies as we see today in abortion (I have a right to do with my body and my unborn baby’s body whatever I want) and I can choose my gender and the gender of my partners.
Two
The Impact of Contraception on Marriage and Society
Contraception disrupts the natural connection between marital intimacy and procreation, leading to a devaluation of marriage. Since its widespread availability in 1968, marriage rates have significantly declined, underscoring its detrimental effects on society’s fundamental unit, the family.
If you separate sex from its purpose of having children, then you also separate sex from marriage in principle and in practice.
The purpose of sex is to have children. Sex leads to babies. The best place to raise babies is marriage. So, the only people who should be having sex are those who are married. But if contraception allows us to have sex without having babies, then the purpose of sex becomes pleasure and not about children. So, there is less reason to get married and stay married, and at that point, why get married at all?
Since contraception was made widely available in about 1968, marriage has declined by 2/3, 66%. Since marriage and family are the fundamental cell of society, contraception has a devastating effect on the good of society.
Three
Contraception is a precursor to Divorce and Abortion
The word matrimony literally means the call to motherhood. Its root is matriarchy, motherhood. If we remove the call to motherhood from the sexual equation, then the goal of sex becomes pleasure. When sexual pleasure becomes the goal of sex rather than having children, then other human beings become objects for sexual pleasure. Once the relationship is based on pleasure, rather than the commitment to marriage and family, the relationship will only last if the pleasure lasts.
Contraception too easily makes the woman an object for pleasure and once the pleasure is gone there is nothing to hold the marriage together. Now you see why contraception leads to infidelity and divorce. Since 1968 the divorce rate skyrocketed from 20% to over 50%.
Contraception is also a precursor to abortion.
It is well known that no method of contraception is 100% effective therefore, we concluded we need a safety net when contraception fails, therefore contraception necessitates the need for abortion. Why? Because if the child was not wanted before conception, he will not be wanted after conception. This is precisely how the Supreme Court justified contraception. Therefore, we will never end abortion until we end contraception.
Four
Devastating decline in birthrate
It takes 2.15 children for each woman to keep your population at zero growth. The birthrate in America is currently between 1.6 and 1.7% because of contraception, abortion, and the sterilization of women and men.
Now that we have separated marriage, sex, and babies, every first-world country is under replacement level for children. No society can economically sustain itself if it will not have children. No society can sustain itself in any fashion if it won’t have children. The refusal to have children is societal and cultural suicide. We are quite literally making ourselves extinct.
There is a tipping point statistically in which you can’t change the trend. By the end of this century, it is quite possible that Europeans and Christianity in Europe will be extinct and Europe will become completely Muslim. Not because of Islamic invasion but because Europeans rejected Jesus and refused to have children.
The devil wants to destroy the fundamental cell of society, marriage, and family so that he can destroy everything. The devil has only one obsession – destroy. No one is forcing us to do this. We are killing ourselves.
When we break apart marriage, sex, and babies we end up redefining all three.
Babies become a clump of cells we can get rid of. Sex becomes simply an exchange of pleasure in which gender is meaningless and changeable. And marriage becomes a governmental stamp of approval on whatever your preference of pleasure exchange might be. This was all predicted in 1968 when Pope Paul VI prophesied the devasting consequences of contraception in Humanae Vitae.
Five
Learn, Invite, Experience Mercy
No one explained the teaching of Jesus on sexual morality to me. I actually thought contraception was the responsible thing to do. But when I was 23 and I was living a very sexually immoral life, a friend handed me a book on Catholic moral theology and I read it. I was angry, not because I didn’t agree, but because I knew immediately it was true and I was angry that no one had shared this with me before. If you are like me and want to learn what and why Jesus and the Church teach what they do, I encourage you to go to askchristopherwest.com.
Second, if you find a person like me, be willing to do what my friend did for me. Share a resource with them, invite them to go to askchristopherwest.com.
Finally, if you are or were like me, don’t beat yourself up for the past or the present. Simply turn to Jesus and tell him you want to live love His way, the authentic way, and then go to Confession where Jesus the Merciful Healer will forgive you and give you all the grace you need for a transformed life.