美国国家公共电台 NPR 50 Years Ago, The Pope Called Birth Control 'Intrinsically Wrong'

50 Years Ago, The Pope Called Birth Control 'Intrinsically Wrong'

NOEL KING, HOST:

Fifty years ago this summer, the pope at the time, Paul VI, stunned¹ Roman Catholics around the world by issuing a new ruling, a new papal encyclical. He called it, "Humanae Vitae" - of human life. In it, he forcefully restated church doctrine² Catholics cannot use birth control.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

POPE POPE PAUL VI: (Through interpreter) It is not only a negative law prohibiting whatever makes procreation impossible. Beyond that, it's a positive expression of conjugal³ morality.

KING: That's from the papal archive at Vatican Radio, and it is not what many Catholics wanted to hear. David Greene spoke⁴ to NPR's Tom Gjelten, who covers religion, about that famous encyclical.

DAVID GREENE, BYLINE⁵: So take us back to the summer of 1968.

TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE: That famous summer, David. Free love, the sexual revolution in full swing, the pill was legal. Catholics were using it, and Paul VI did not approve.

GREENE: It wasn't that he just did not approve. I mean, he said birth control was a sin, right?

GJELTEN: A mortal sin. Now, natural family planning, aka the rhythm method, that still OK, but not artificial contraception. And, you know, birth control had already been prohibited for Catholics decades earlier, but a special papal commission had said that ban should be dropped. So when the pope actually reaffirmed it, there was an outcry. Mark Massa, the dean of theology at Boston College, for that reason sees that as a turning point.

MARK MASSA: I think what it did in the minds of a lot of Catholics, it simply said, we're not going to pay any attention to this, the church doesn't know what it's talking about on bedroom issues.

GJELTEN: One recent survey, David, found 83 percent see no conflict between using birth control and being a good Catholic.

GREENE: OK. So you have a lot of Catholics basically ignoring instructions from the pope. What does that mean for the relationship these Catholics have with their church?

GJELTEN: Well, I was in Milwaukee recently exploring that very question. One of the parishes that I visited was Saint Sebastian. The parish priest there, Father Larry Chapman, was saying a mass the day I visited. And one of the things that struck me in his homily was how he talked about church teachings.

LARRY CHAPMAN: Back when I was in school, we learned religion by learning questions and answers. Didn't have a whole lot of other things to do, but we did learn questions and answers.

GJELTEN: In an interview, Father Chapman said he takes a looser approach now in talking about church teachings.

CHAPMAN: I can come out and say, this is what you have to believe. Or, I can come out and say, let me invite you to consider this.

GJELTEN: This is one way the Catholic Church has changed since "Humanae Vitae," and maybe because of it. Among the parishioners in the social room at Saint Sebastian that day was Krista Sanders (ph). She talked about a church workshop she and her husband attended to prepare them for marriage.

KRISTA SANDERS: One of the sections they have is about natural family planning. And I know that's what they preach and teach. And they give you handouts⁶ about, you know, all these different testimonials from different couples who have done it.

GJELTEN: But Krista didn't buy it.

SANDERS: It's kind of like, OK, that's a nice suggestion. I appreciate the information on that. But in this current day, I don't know if it's as relevant for couples like us starting out their marriages in the Catholic faith.

GJELTEN: Now, using birth control is officially still a mortal sin, but a lot of Catholics have a hard time accepting that. Jerry DeMers (ph) worships at another Milwaukee parish, Saint Anthony on the Lake. He's 61 years old, raised and educated to be a good Catholic.

JERRY DEMERS: One of the things that I learned in high school from a Jesuit is that mortal sin is that you are making a fundamental option to turn from God. And contraception didn't seem to fit that. It didn't make sense.

GJELTEN: Now, this is significant - a devout⁷ Catholic saying a core teaching of the church doesn't make sense. And yet, the story is more complicated. Even though Jerry DeMers and his wife used birth control, he says he understands why the pope did not approve.

DEMERS: Actually, I get the point, the prediction that he makes - that if we practice contraception as a society, we will have a breakdown⁸ of the family because we have separated sex from marriage.

GJELTEN: In fact, some of the things Paul VI said in "Humanae Vitae" find an echo in contemporary concerns about sexual relations. He said, for example, that a man accustomed to using contraception may reduce women, quote, "to a mere⁹ instrument of his own desires." And a conservative minority is saying the widespread use of birth control did lead to promiscuity¹⁰. In that group is the Catholic writer Mary Eberstadt. She spoke recently at a conference on "Humanae Vitae," saying, if we knew 50 years ago that the sexual revolution would bring more broken marriages, even abortions¹¹, fewer Catholics might have objected to the encyclical.

MARY EBERSTADT: Those of us living today now have access to something they didn't - 50 years of sociological, psychological, medical and other evidence about the revolution's fallout.

GJELTEN: In an interview after that speech, she said she finds the "Humanae Vitae" encyclical richly prophetic.

EBERSTADT: This document that has been so controversial and in many places reviled¹² actually called the shots on what the future would look like better than any other single source I could think of.

GJELTEN: Now, married Catholic couples feel strongly about being able to control the size of their families. And, David, the vast, vast majority still use birth control in defiance¹³ of their church's teaching.

GREENE: That story coming to us from NPR's Tom Gjelten, who covers religion and is with us. Is there a larger lesson from these last 50 years as you've looked back?

GJELTEN: I think, David, it's that church authority is weaker. Father Mark Massa at Boston College, whom we heard from earlier, says when people see a law as flawed, it can breed contempt for law in general.

MASSA: People started to say, well, maybe the church's position on a whole realm of other things was equally mistaken. So I think a lot of historians, including myself, are looking at this event, saying, a lot of what has happened in American Catholicism in the past 50 years can be laid at the feet of "Humanae Vitae."

GJELTEN: So the "Humanae Vitae" encyclical was a turning point. Catholicism today is looser, more Catholics challenging church teaching, leaders accommodating, more dissent¹⁴.

GREENE: All right. Sounds great. Tom, thanks a lot.

GJELTEN: You bet.

GREENE: That is Tom Gjelten, NPR's religion correspondent, with another of our stories on the events of 1968, that momentous¹⁵ year.

1 stunned   

adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The fall stunned me for a moment. 那一下摔得我昏迷了片刻。
• The leaders of the Kopper Company were then stunned speechless. 科伯公司的领导们当时被惊得目瞪口呆。

2 doctrine   

n.教义；主义；学说

参考例句：

• He was impelled to proclaim his doctrine.他不得不宣扬他的教义。
• The council met to consider changes to doctrine.宗教议会开会考虑更改教义。

3 conjugal   

adj.婚姻的，婚姻性的

参考例句：

• Conjugal visits are banned,so marriages break down.配偶访问是禁止的，罪犯的婚姻也因此破裂。
• Conjugal fate is something delicate.缘分，其实是一种微妙的东西。

4 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 handouts   

救济品( handout的名词复数 )； 施舍物； 印刷品； 讲义

参考例句：

• Soldiers oversee the food handouts. 士兵们看管着救济食品。
• Even after losing his job, he was too proud to accept handouts. 甚至在失去工作后，他仍然很骄傲，不愿接受施舍。

7 devout   

adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness)

参考例句：

• His devout Catholicism appeals to ordinary people.他对天主教的虔诚信仰感染了普通民众。
• The devout man prayed daily.那位虔诚的男士每天都祈祷。

8 breakdown   

n.垮，衰竭；损坏，故障，倒塌

参考例句：

• She suffered a nervous breakdown.她患神经衰弱。
• The plane had a breakdown in the air,but it was fortunately removed by the ace pilot.飞机在空中发生了故障，但幸运的是被王牌驾驶员排除了。

9 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

10 promiscuity   

n.混杂，混乱；（男女的）乱交

参考例句：

• Promiscuity went unpunished, divorce was permitted. 乱交挨不着惩罚，离婚办得成手续。 来自英汉文学
• There is also no doubt that she falls into promiscuity at last. 同时无疑她最后也堕入性乱。 来自互联网

11 abortions   

n.小产( abortion的名词复数 )；小产胎儿；（计划）等中止或夭折；败育

参考例句：

• The Venerable Master: By not having abortions, by not killing living beings. 上人：不堕胎、不杀生。 来自互联网
• Conclusion Chromosome abnormality is one of the causes of spontaneous abortions. 结论：染色体异常是导致反复自然流产的原因之一。 来自互联网

12 reviled   

v.辱骂，痛斥( revile的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The tramp reviled the man who drove him off. 流浪汉辱骂那位赶他走开的人。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• The old man reviled against corruption. 那老人痛斥了贪污舞弊。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 defiance   

n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗

参考例句：

• He climbed the ladder in defiance of the warning.他无视警告爬上了那架梯子。
• He slammed the door in a spirit of defiance.他以挑衅性的态度把门砰地一下关上。

14 dissent   

n./v.不同意，持异议

参考例句：

• It is too late now to make any dissent.现在提出异议太晚了。
• He felt her shoulders gave a wriggle of dissent.他感到她的肩膀因为不同意而动了一下。

15 momentous   

adj.重要的，重大的

参考例句：

• I am deeply honoured to be invited to this momentous occasion.能应邀出席如此重要的场合，我深感荣幸。
• The momentous news was that war had begun.重大的新闻是战争已经开始。