July 25, 2008 marked the fortieth anniversary of the promulgation of the encyclical Humane Vitae which was written by Pope Paul VI. The encyclical addresses issues related to the sanctity of life, but it is best known for its clear enunciation of the Church's teaching against the use of any forms of artificial birth control. Pope John Paul II, then Archbishop Karol Wojtyla, was involved in the work that was done prior to the writing of Humane Vitae. The following is an excerpt from Chapter 6, Successor to St Stanislaw, which is found in George Weigel's biography of Pope John Paul II, Witness to Hope.

This week has the fifth and final excerpt. You can read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 by clicking on the links.

The timing of Humanae Vitae could not have been worse; 1968, a year of revolutionary enthusiasms, was not the moment for calm, measured reflection on anything. It is doubtful whether any reiteration of the classic Catholic position on marital chastity, no matter how persuasively argued, could have been heard in such circumstances. On the other hand, one has to ask why a position that defended "natural" means of fertility regulation was deemed impossibly antiquarian at precisely the moment when "natural" was becoming one of the sacred words in the developed world, especially with regard to ecological consciousness. The answer is obviously complex, but it surely has something to do with whether Humanae Vitae provided an adequately personalistic framework in which to engage its teaching.

The Kraków memorandum also demonstrated that the marital ethic it proposed was not a matter of Catholic special pleading (still less Polish Catholic special pleading); its moral claims could be debated by reasonable people, irrespective of their religious convictions. Humanae Vitae did not demonstrate this adequately. The encyclical was a step beyond the "stupid conservatism" that had worried some participants in the Kraków Commission, but it was not enough of a step. Kraków had dealt with the fact that changing cultural conditions required articulating a new context for classic moral principles. Rome remained rather tone-deaf to the question of context. The result was that the principles were dismissed as pre-modern, or just irrational.

The failure to explicate a personalist context for the Catholic sexual ethic, compounded by the politicization of the post-Humanae Vitae debate in the Church, had serious ramifications for the Church's effort to articulate a compelling Christian humanism in the modern world. In its first major post-Vatican II confrontation with the sexual revolution—the most potent manifestation of the notion of freedom as personal autonomy—the Church had been put squarely on the defensive. Had the Kraków commission's memorandum shaped the argumentation of Humanae Vitae more decisively, a more intelligent and sensitive debate might have ensued.

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