All admit that priests should transmit the true teaching of the Church on this subject. This is even more the case today then before 1968, the year of Humanae Vitae, for since then the majority of bishops’ conferences have tried to minimize the doctrine of the encyclical, although it is but a pure repetition of Catholic teaching - by appealing to the individual conscience and to the false problem of the “minus malum: ‘the lesser evil’ “ (i.e. situation ethics).

Consequently, even among those who admit as certain, according to the constant teaching of the Magisterium, that voluntary and direct contraception is always a grave sin, there is disagreement concerning which course to follow: should the natural method of birth regulation be encouraged and propagated, as if it were always quite licit (i.e. lawful)? Or should we speak only of God’s Paternal Providence, on which Catholic parents have to rely, and consider the above mentioned method as always illicit? What is the teaching of the Church on this topic?

From the very beginning, that is, as soon as physiological knowledge could make clear the distinction between fertile and infertile periods in the menstrual cycle of women, Catholic theologians have been reluctant to declare licit the use of periodical continence: “Should the behavior of spouses be esteemed as irreproachable who, without special reason and only because they do not want (more) children, although the wife is healthy enough and the family able to educate them, decide to have marital relations only during fertile periods?” The answer is no (1). Abstinence indeed is in itself quite licit (provided it is by mutual consent of both spouses). That is why there is an irreducible difference between this sterile use of marriage by temporary abstinence and artificial sterility produced by contraception. But the decision to have marital relations only during the infertile periods needs a justification in order to be conformed to right reason. And since it is a grave duty for married people to have children, only a grave reason can justify this periodical continence. There can of course be spiritual motives to justify it. (cf. I Cor. 7, 4-7) But if periodical continence is used in order to avoid a new birth, says Pope Pius XII, it is permitted only for serious reasons, which are independent from the good will of the spouses and which exempt them from the grave duty of procreation. These reasons, explains the Pope, can be of medical, eugenic, economic or social nature (2).

Let us give some examples of these reasons. A medical reason: if the health of the mother would be seriously endangered; a eugenic reason: if the child would not be able to live or would be born with a incurable disease; an economic and social reason would be the impossibility for the parents to educate a new child on account of their economic situation or social cir-cumstances. Any of these would tell the parents that God’s will for the family is not a new birth for the time being.

Note that even if these limits allowing periodical continence can be somewhat “broad” according to Pope Pius XII himself (3), in all these cases the parents do not (themselves) decide to control or plan the number of their children; they only try to regulate the birth according to God’s will as it is made known to them by the circumstances of their life.

Total abstinence is always allowed, but in cases when a new birth seems not to be reasonable, periodic abstinence is also justified, as long as there is a grave reason. Without a grave reason, it is certainly sinful and, according to the principles of moral theology, such a practice could even become a mortal sin when it amounts to a grave matter: e.g. it would be the case if an unjustified use of the natural method lasted more than one or two years, for in such a case society and the Church would be deprived of a child whom the parents had a duty to give to them.

It must also be pointed out that those who use the Rhythm Method without reason are going to face difficulties in their marital life (4), perhaps more than by total abstinence. Such a love-life is satisfactory neither for the husband nor the wife, who must postpone their manifestaton of affection just at the time when nature makes it greater. Temptation can arise, which they may not be able to overcome if they deprive themselves of God’s grace by selfish behavior.

Let us summarize by saying:

1) that it belongs to specialists, doctors and midwives, to teach the natural method of controlling fertility;

2) that too much propaganda given to this method would be neither just nor appropriate;

3) that without contradicting the advice of a conscientious doctor (very difficult to find today for such matters), when he says that, for a serious reason, a couple should wait before having another child, the priest has often to encourage married people to have confidence in God who takes care of all His children.

The answer to the queston: “How can we prevent contraception and sterilization among Catholics?” becomes much clearer. Rather than promoting the Rhythm Method, whose use can, however, by justified in the above-mentioned circumstances, Catholic priests have the duty to teach their faithful to place their confidence in God, and to accept with generosity the children He wants for them. And they should fight against contraceptive mentality. Only with Catholic families who trust in God and know that it is possi-ble, with His Grace, to bear our daily crosses, can we work to rechristianize society. It is not those who seek first their own comfort and are always ready to compromise Christian ideals with the prin-ciples of the world who will understand this.

(1) Benoit LAVUAD, O.P. Le Monde Moderne et Le Manage Chretien, Paris, 1935, 98-101.

(2) Pius XII, Allocution to midwives, 20.10.1951 (AAS 43, 1951, 845-846).

(3) Pius XII, Allocution to the associations of large families, 26.11.1951 (AAS 43, 1951, 859).

(4) Pere Barbara, Catechese Catholique du Manage, Saint-Maurice, 1963, p. 132, note 39.