> He speaks on matters of morality. It’s in the job description.
As a non-Catholic (studying to be one) I have always wondered why contraception was a matter of morality, as opposed to being a matter of commonsense?
(Yes, I have read about Onan, and am of the view that he was struck dead not because he played with himself, and not because he used a rudimentary form of contraception, but because of his motives for doing so — which were to avoid keeping his brother’s family line alive, after his brother’s death: in other words, he tried to wiggle out of carrying out a direct command from God by making compliance impossible.)
Nearly all matters of morality ought to be matters of common sense, but, according to Catholic teaching, because of one of the effects of original sin (the effect termed ‘darkening of the intellect’) man sometimes has difficulty using common sense, either because of flawed premises or because of faulty reasoning, and so God has gone ahead and revealed much that man could, and often does, reason to.
If one does a rudimentary biological study, most people will conclude that the reproductive organs are for reproduction. Thus, over the course of history, most cultures and religions have officially condemned contraception. Under the influence of Freud, Malthus, and ZPGers, the Anglicans broke ranks with this tradition in 1930 in a limited way, and over the next 38 years nearly the entire rest of Western civilization followed suit, so that in 1968 Paul VI seemed very isolated from contemporary western thought when he re-affirmed the traditional teaching in his encyclical Humanae Vitae. Most of the west had become stuck on the idea that the reproductive organs are actually a cheap home entertainment system, and the last 40 years have done little to change the western outlook (which is beginning to creep into Islam).
While there are a handful of Biblical texts that, with a little ingenuity, can be used with people intent on deriving all truth directly from the Bible while discussing this subject, for those willing to admit the use of reason, the most useful starting point is probably the point “Thou shall not lust,” specifically as put forward by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount (cf. Mt. 5:28). Lust is the seeking of sexual gratification without regard for the whole person. Contraception seeks to allow sexual gratification while eliminating two aspects of the person: the reproductive aspect, and the aspect of temporal commitment [the language of the sexual act naturally includes a commitment to remain with the person for the sake of rearing any offspring that might result from the union). As the ability to procreate is the greatest natural gift given to man (a way in which man surpasses even the angels) this is no minor thing—those who contracept are rejecting one of the fundamental aspects of both their partners and themselves. John Paul II wrote much on this subject, most notably in his book Love and Responsibility (which is not an easy read).