Address to Midwives
Given by His
Holiness Pope Pius XII
29 October 1951
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When one thinks of this admirable collaboration of the parents, of
nature and of God, from which is born a new human being in the image
and likeness of God, how can the precious contribution which you give
to such a work be not appreciated? The heroic mother of the Machabees
admonished her children: "I know not how you were formed in my womb,
for I neither gave you breath, nor soul, nor life, neither did I frame
the limbs of every one of you. But the Creator of the world that formed
the nativity of men . . .."
Therefore, he who approaches this cradle of life's origin and exercises
his action in one way or another must know the order which the Creator
wishes maintained and the laws which govern it. For here it is not a
case of purely physical or biological laws which blind forces and
irrational agents obey, but of laws whose execution and effects are
entrusted to the voluntary and free cooperation of man.
This order, fixed by the supreme intelligence, is directed to the
purpose willed by the Creator. It embraces the exterior work of man and
the internal assent of his free will; it implies action and dutiful
omission. Nature places at man's disposal the concatenation of the
causes from which will rise a new human life, it is for man to release
its loving force, for nature to develop its course and lead it to its
completion. When man has completed his part and placed in action the
marvelous evolution of life, his duty is to respect its progress in a
religious manner, a duty which forbids him to arrest nature's work or
halt its natural development.
In such a way nature's part and man's part are distinctly determined.
Your professional formation and experience place you in a position to
know the action of nature and that of man, no less than the rules and
the laws to which both are subject; your conscience, illuminated by
reason and faith, under the guidance of the Authority established by
God, teaches you how far lawful action extends, and when, instead,
there is strictly imposed the obligation of omission.
The inviolability of human life
You, more than others, can appreciate and realize what human life is in
itself, and what it is worth in the eyes of sane reason, before your
moral conscience, before civil society, before the Church and, above
all, what it is worth in the eyes of God. God created all earthly
things for man; and man himself, as regards his being and his essence,
has been created for God and not for any other creature, even if, as
regards his actions, he has obligations towards the community as well.
The child is "man," even if he be not yet born, in the same degree and
by the same title as his mother.
Besides, every human being, even the child in the womb, has the right
to life directly from God and not from his parents, not from any
society or human authority. Therefore, there is no man, no human
authority, no science, no "indication" at all—whether it be medical,
eugenic, social, economic, or moral—that may offer or give a valid
judicial title for a direct deliberate disposal of an innocent human
life, that is, a disposal which aims at its destruction, whether as an
end in itself or as a means to achieve the end, perhaps in no way at
all illicit. Thus, for example, to save the life of the mother is a
very noble act; but the direct killing of the child as a means to such
an end is illicit. The direct destruction of so-called "useless lives,"
already born or still in the womb, practiced extensively a few years
ago, can in no wise be justified. Therefore, when this practice was
initiated, the Church expressly declared that it was against the
natural law and the divine positive law, and consequently that it was
unlawful to kill, even by order of the public authorities, those who
were innocent, even if on account of some physical or mental defect,
they were useless to the State and a burden upon it. The life of an
innocent person is sacrosanct, and any direct attempt or aggression
against it is a violation of one of the fundamental laws without which
secure human society is impossible. We have no need to teach you in
detail the meaning and the gravity, in your profession, of this
fundamental law. But never forget this: there rises above every human
law and above every "indication" the faultless law of God.
The apostolate of your profession imposes on you the duty of passing on
to others the knowledge, esteem and respect for human life that you
foster in your heart by reason of your Christian convictions. You must,
when called upon, be prepared to defend resolutely, and when possible,
protect the helpless and hidden life of the child, basing yourselves on
the divine precept: Non occides: do not kill. Such a defensive function
is sometimes presented as most necessary and urgent. It is not,
however, the nobler and more important part of your mission; this in
fact is not merely negative, but above all constructive, and tends to
promote, edify and strengthen.
Welcoming the newly born
Infuse into the spirit and heart of the mother and father the esteem,
desire, joy, and the loving welcome of the newly born right from its
first cry. The child, formed in the mother's womb, is a gift of God,
Who entrusts its care to the parents. With what delicacy and charm does
the Sacred Scripture show the gracious crown of children united around
the father's table! Children are the recompense of the just, as
sterility is very often the punishment for the sinner. Hearken to the
divine word expressed with the insuperable poetry of the Psalm: "Your
wife, as a fruitful vine within your house, your children as olive
shoots round about your table. Behold, thus is that man blessed, who
fears the Lord!", while of the wicked it is written: "May his posterity
be given over to destruction; may their name be blotted out in the next
generation".
Immediately after birth, be quick to place the child in the father's
arms—as the ancient Romans were wont to do—but with a spirit
incomparably more elevated. For the Romans, it was the affirmation of
the paternity and the authority which derived from it; here it is
grateful homage to the Creator, the invocation of divine blessings, the
promise to fulfill with devout affection the office which God has
committed him. If the Lord praises and rewards the faithful servant for
having yielded him five talents, what praise, what reward will He
reserve for the father, who has guarded and raised for Him a human life
entrusted to him, greater than all the gold and silver of the world?
Your apostolate, however, is directed above all to the mother.
Undoubtedly nature's voice speaks in her and places in her heart the
desire, joy, courage, love and will to care for the child; but to
overcome the suggestions of fearfulness in all its forms, that voice
must be strengthened and take on, so to say, a supernatural accent. It
is your duty to cause the young mother to enjoy, less by your words
than by your whole manner of acting, the greatness, beauty and nobility
of that life which begins, is formed and lives in her womb, that child
which she bears in her arms and suckles at her breast; to make shine in
her eyes and heart the great gift of God's love for her and her child.
Sacred Scripture makes us understand with many examples the echo of
suppliant prayers and then the songs of grateful happiness of many
mothers who, after having longingly and tearfully implored the grace of
motherhood, were finally answered.
Even the pains which, after original sin, a mother has to suffer to
give birth to her child only make her draw tighter the bond which
unites them: the more the pain has cost her, so much the more is her
love for her child. He who formed mothers' hearts, expressed this
thought with moving and profound simplicity: "A woman about to give
birth has sorrow, because her hour has come. But when she has brought
forth the child, she no longer remembers the anguish for her joy that a
man is born into the world." Through the pen of the Apostle, St. Paul,
the Holy Ghost also points out the greatness and joy of motherhood: God
gives the child to the mother, but, together with the gift, He makes
her cooperate effectively at the opening of the flower, of which He has
deposited the germ in her womb, and this cooperation becomes a way
which leads her to her eternal salvation: "Yet women will be saved by
child bearing".
This perfect accord of reason and faith gives you the guarantee that
you are within the real truth and that you may continue your apostolate
of respect and love for incipient life with unconditioned security. If
you succeed in carrying out your apostolate at the cradle where rests
the newly born child, it will not be too difficult for you to obtain
what your professional conscience in harmony with the laws of God and
of nature, obliges you to prescribe for the welfare of mother and
child.
On the other hand, it is not necessary for Us to show you who are well
experienced, how much this apostolate of respect and love for the new
life is necessary today. Unfortunately, cases are not rare in which it
is sufficient only to hint at the fact that children are a 'blessing"
to provoke contradiction and even derision More often in word and
thought the idea of the great "burden" of children is predominant.
Inasmuch as this mentality is opposed to God's plan and to Scripture,
so is it also contrary to sane reason and the sentiments of nature! If
there are conditions and circumstances in which parents without
violating God's law can avoid the "blessing" of children, nevertheless
these unavoidable and exceptional cases do not authorize anyone to
pervert ideas, to despise values and to treat with contempt the mother
who had the courage and honor to give life.
Supernatural life
If what We have said up to now concerns the protection and care of
natural life, much more so must it concern the supernatural life, which
the newly born receives with Baptism. In the present economy there is
no other way to communicate that life to the child who has not attained
the use of reason. Above all, the state of grace is absolutely
necessary at the moment of death without it salvation and supernatural
happiness—the beatific vision of God—are impossible. An act of love is
sufficient for the adult to obtain sanctifying grace and to supply the
lack of baptism; to the still unborn or newly born this way is not
open. Therefore, if it is considered that charity to our fellowman
obliges us to assist him in the case of necessity, then this obligation
is so much the more important and urgent as the good to be obtained or
the evil to be avoided is the greater, and in the measure that the
needy person is incapable of helping or saving himself with his own
powers; and so it is easy to understand the great importance of
providing for the baptism of the child deprived of complete reason who
finds himself in grave danger or at death's threshold.
Undoubtedly this duty binds the parents in the first place, but in case
of necessity, when there is no time to lose or it is not possible to
call a priest, the sublime office of conferring baptism is yours.
(Loveliness of this act of spiritual mercy.)
The mother's duties
At the moment she understood the Angel's message the Virgin Mary
replied: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord! Be it done unto me according
to thy word." A "fiat," a burning "yes" to the call to motherhood! A
virginal maternity, incomparably superior to any other; but a real
maternity, in the true and proper sense of the word. Therefore, when
reciting the Angelus, after baying recalled to mind Mary's acceptance,
the faithful immediately reply: "And the Word was made flesh."
One of the fundamental demands of the true moral order is that to the
use of the marriage rights there corresponds the sincere internal
acceptance of the function and duties of motherhood. With this
condition the woman walks in the path traced out by the Creator towards
the goal which He has assigned His creature; He makes her, by the
exercise of this function, partaker of His goodness, wisdom and
omnipotence, according to the Angel's message: "Concipies in utero et
paries—you will conceive and bear forth a child".
If such then is the biological foundation of your professional
activity, the urgent object of your apostolate will be: to maintain,
reawake and stimulate the sense and love of the function of motherhood.
When husband and wife value and appreciate the honor of producing a new
life, whose coming they await with holy impatience, your part is a very
easy one: it is easy enough to cultivate in them this interior
sentiment the readiness to welcome and cherish that nascent life
follows spontaneously. This is unfortunately not always the case; often
the child is not wanted; worse still, it is dreaded. How can there be a
ready response to the call of duty in such conditions? Your apostolate
must in this case be exercised both efficiently and efficaciously:
first of all, negatively, by refusing any immoral cooperation secondly,
positively, by turning your delicate care to the task of removing those
preconceived ideas, various fears or faint excuses, to removing as far
as possible the obstacles, even if external, which may make the
acceptance of motherhood painful.
If recourse is had to you for advice and help to facilitate the birth
of new life, to protect it and set it on its way towards its full
development, you can unhesitatingly lend your help; but in how many
cases are you, instead, called upon to prevent the procreation and
preservation of this life, regardless of the precepts of the moral
order? To accede to such requests would be to debase your knowledge and
your skill by becoming accomplices in an immoral action; it would be
the perversion of your apostolate. This requires a calm but unequivocal
"no" that prevents the transgression of God's law and of the dictates
of your conscience. Hence your profession obliges you to a clear
knowledge of this divine law, so that it may be observed without excess
or defect.
The conjugal act
Our Predecessor, Pius XI, of happy memory, in his Encyclical Casti
Connubii, of December 31, 1930, once again solemnly proclaimed the
fundamental law of the conjugal act and conjugal relations: that every
attempt of either husband or wife in the performance of the conjugal
act or in the development of its natural consequences which aims at
depriving it of its inherent force and hinders the procreation of new
life is immoral; and that no "indication" or need can convert an act
which is intrinsically immoral into a moral and lawful one.
This precept is in full force today, as it was in the past, and so it
will be in the future also, and always, because it is not a simple
human whim, but the expression of a natural and divine law.
Let Our words be a sure rule for all those cases which require of your
profession and your apostolate a clear and firm decision.
Sterilization
It would be more than a mere lack of readiness in the service of life
if an attack made by man were to concern not only a single act but
should affect the organism itself to deprive it, by means of
sterilization, of the faculty of procreating a new life. Here, too, you
have a clear rule in the Church's teaching to guide your behavior both
interiorly and exteriorly. Direct sterilization— that is, whose aim
tends as a means or as an end at making procreation impossible—is a
grave violation of the moral law and therefore unlawful. Not even
public authority has any right, under the pretext of any "indication"
whatsoever, to permit it, and less still to prescribe it or to have it
used to the detriment of innocent human beings.
This principle is already proclaimed in the above mentioned Encyclical
of Pius XI on marriage. Thus when ten years or so ago sterilization
came to be more widely applied, the Holy See saw the necessity of
expressly and publicly declaring that direct sterilization, either
perpetual or temporary, in either the male or the female, is unlawful
according to natural law, from which, as you well know, not even the
Church has the power to dispense.
As far as you can, oppose, in your apostolate, these perverse
tendencies and do not give them your cooperation.
Birth control
Today, besides, another grave problem has arisen, namely, if and how
far the obligation of being ready for the service of maternity is
reconcilable with the ever more general recourse to the periods of
natural sterility the so-called "agenesic" periods in woman, which
seems a clear expression of a will contrary to that precept.
You are expected to be well informed, from the medical point of view,
in regard to this new theory and the progress which may still be made
on this subject, and it is also expected that your advice and
assistance shall not be based upon mere popular publications, but upon
objective science and on the authoritative judgment of conscientious
specialists in medicine and biology. It is your function, not the
priest's, to instruct the married couple through private consultation
or serious publications on the biological and technical aspect of the
theory, without however allowing yourselves to be drawn into an unjust
and unbecoming propaganda. But in this field also your apostolate
demands of you, as women and as Christians, that you know and defend
the moral law, to which the application of the theory is subordinated.
In this the Church is competent.
It is necessary first of all to consider two hypotheses. If the
application of that theory implies that husband and wife may use their
matrimonial right even during the days of natural sterility no
objection can be made. In this case they do not hinder or jeopardize in
any way the consummation of the natural act and its ulterior natural
consequences. It is exactly in this that the application of the theory,
of which We are speaking, differs essentially from the abuse already
mentioned, which consists in the perversion of the act itself. If,
instead, husband and wife go further, that is, limiting the conjugal
act exclusively to those periods, then their conduct must be examined
more closely.
Here again we are faced with two hypotheses. If, one of the parties
contracted marriage with the intention of limiting the matrimonial
right itself to the periods of sterility, and not only its use, in such
a manner that during the other days the other party would not even have
the right to ask for the debt, than this would imply an essential
defect in the marriage consent, which would result in the marriage
being invalid, because the right deriving from the marriage contract is
a permanent, uninterrupted and continuous right of husband and wife
with respect to each other.
However if the limitation of the act to the periods of natural
sterility does not refer to the right itself but only to the use of the
right, the validity of the marriage does not come up for discussion.
Nonetheless, the moral lawfulness of such conduct of husband and wife
should be affirmed or denied according as their intention to observe
constantly those periods is or is not based on sufficiently morally
sure motives. The mere fact that husband and wife do not offend the
nature of the act and are even ready to accept and bring up the child,
who, notwithstanding their precautions, might be born, would not be
itself sufficient to guarantee the rectitude of their intention and the
unobjectionable morality of their motives.
The reason is that marriage obliges the partners to a state of life,
which even as it confers certain rights so it also imposes the
accomplishment of a positive work concerning the state itself. In such
a case, the general principle may be applied that a positive action may
be omitted if grave motives, independent of the good will of those who
are obliged to perform it, show that its performance is inopportune, or
prove that it may not be claimed with equal right by the petitioner—in
this case, mankind.
The matrimonial contract, which confers on the married couple the right
to satisfy the inclination of nature, constitutes them in a state of
life, namely, the matrimonial state. Now, on married couples, who make
use of the specific act of their state, nature and the Creator impose
the function of providing for the preservation of mankind. This is the
characteristic service which gives rise to the peculiar value of their
state, the bonum prolis. The individual and society, the people and the
State, the Church itself, depend for their existence, in the order
established by God, on fruitful marriages. Therefore, to embrace the
matrimonial state, to use continually the faculty proper to such a
state and lawful only therein, and, at the same time, to avoid its
primary duty without a grave reason, would be a sin against the very
nature of married life.
Serious motives, such as those which not rarely arise from medical,
eugenic, economic and social so-called "indications," may exempt
husband and wife from the obligatory, positive debt for a long period
or even for the entire period of matrimonial life. From this it follows
that the observance of the natural sterile periods may be lawful, from
the moral viewpoint: and it is lawful in the conditions mentioned. If,
however, according to a reasonable and equitable judgment, there are no
such grave reasons either personal or deriving from exterior
circumstances, the will to avoid the fecundity of their union, while
continuing to satisfy to tile full their sensuality, can only be the
result of a false appreciation of life and of motives foreign to sound
ethical principles.
The heroism of continence
Perhaps you will now press the point, however, observing that in the
exercise of your profession you find yourselves sometimes faced with
delicate cases, in which, that is, there cannot be a demand that the
risk of maternity be run, a risk which in certain cases must be
absolutely avoided, and in which as well the observance of the agenesic
periods either does not give sufficient security, or must be rejected
for other reasons. Now, you ask, how can one still speak of an
apostolate in the service of maternity?
If, in your sure and experienced judgment, the circumstances require an
absolute "no," that is to say, the exclusion of motherhood, it would be
a mistake and a wrong to impose or advise a "yes." Here it is a
question of basic facts and therefore not a theological but a medical
question; and thus it is in your competence. However, in such cases,
the married couple does not desire a medical answer, of necessity a
negative one, but seeks an approval of a "technique" of conjugal
activity which will not give rise to maternity. And so you are again
called to exercise your apostolate inasmuch as you leave no doubt
whatsoever that even in these extreme cases every preventive practice
and every direct attack upon the life and the development of the seed
is, in conscience, forbidden and excluded, and that there is only one
way open, namely, to abstain from every complete performance of the
natural faculty. Your apostolate in this matter requires that you have
a clear and certain judgment and a calm firmness.
It will be objected that such an abstention is impossible, that such a
heroism is asking too much. You will hear this objection raised; you
will read it everywhere. Even those who should be in a position to
judge very differently, either by reason of their duties or
qualifications, are ever ready to bring forward the following argument:
"No one is obliged to do what is impossible, and it may be presumed
that no reasonable legislator can will his law to oblige to the point
of impossibility. But for husbands and wives long periods of abstention
are impossible. Therefore they are not obliged to abstain; divine law
cannot have this meaning."
In such a manner, from partially true premises, one arrives at a false
conclusion. To convince oneself of this it suffices to invert the terms
of the argument: "God does not oblige anyone to do what is impossible.
But God obliges husband and wife to abstinence if their union cannot be
completed according to the laws of nature. Therefore in this case
abstinence is possible." To confirm this argument, there can be brought
forward the doctrine of the Council of Trent, which, in the chapter on
the observance necessary and possible of referring to a passage of St.
Augustine, teaches: "God does not command the impossible but while He
commands, He warns you to do what you can and to ask for the grace for
what you cannot do and He helps you so that you may be able".
Do not be disturbed, therefore, in the practice of your profession and
apostolate, by this great talk of impossibility. Do not be disturbed in
your internal judgment nor in your external conduct. Never lend
yourselves to anything which is contrary to the law of God and to your
Christian conscience! It would be a wrong towards men and women of our
age to judge them incapable of continuous heroism. Nowadays, for many a
reason,—perhaps constrained by dire necessity or even at times
oppressed by injustice—heroism is exercised to a degree and to an
extent that in the past would have been thought impossible. Why, then,
if circumstances truly demand it, should this heroism stop at the
limits prescribed by the passions and the inclinations of nature? It is
clear: he who does not want to master himself is not able to do so, and
he who wishes to master himself relying only upon his own powers,
without sincerely and perseveringly seeking divine help, will be
miserably deceived.
Here is what concerns your apostolate for winning married people over
to a service of motherhood, not in the sense of an utter servitude
under the promptings of nature, but to the exercise of the rights and
duties of married life, governed by the principles of reason and faith.
The final aspect of your apostolate concerns the defense of both the
right order of values and of the dignity of the human being.
The order of values
"Personal values" and the need to respect such are a theme which, over
the last twenty years or so, has been considered more and more by
writers. In many of their works, even the specifically sexual act has
its place assigned, that of serving the "person" of the married couple.
The proper and most profound sense of the exercise of conjugal rights
would consist in this, that the union of bodies is the expression and
the realization of personal and affective union.
Articles, chapters, entire books, conferences, especially dealing with
the "technique" of love, are composed to spread these ideas, to
illustrate them with advice to the newly married as a guide in
matrimony, in order that they may not neglect, through stupidity or a
false sense of shame or unfounded scruples, that which God, Who also
created natural inclinations, offers them. If from their complete
reciprocal gift of husband and wife there results a new life, it is a
result which remains outside, or, at the most, on the border of
"personal values"; a result which is not denied, but neither is it
desired as the center of marital relations.
According to these theories, your dedication for the welfare of the
still hidden life in the womb of the mother, anti your assisting its
happy birth, would only have but a minor and secondary importance.
Now, if this relative evaluation were merely to place the emphasis on
the personal values of husband and wife rather than on that of the
offspring, it would be possible, strictly speaking, to put such a
problem aside. But, however, it is a matter of a grave inversion of the
order of values and of the ends imposed by the Creator Himself. We find
Ourselves faced with the propagation of a number of ideas and
sentiments directly opposed to the clarity, profundity, and seriousness
of Christian thought. Here, once again, the need for your apostolate.
It may happen that you receive the confidences of the mother and wife
and are questioned on the more secret desires and intimacies of married
life. How, then, will you be able, aware of your mission, to give
weight to truth and right order in the appreciation and action of the
married couple, if you yourselves are not furnished with the strength
of character needed to uphold what you know to be true and just?
The primary end of marriage
Now, the truth is that matrimony, as an institution of nature, in
virtue of the Creator's will, has not as a primary and intimate end the
personal perfection of the married couple but the procreation and
upbringing of a new life. The other ends, inasmuch as they are intended
by nature, are not equally primary, much less superior to the primary
end, but are essentially subordinated to it. This is true of every
marriage, even if no offspring result, just as of every eye it can be
said that it is destined and formed to see, even if, in abnormal cases
arising from special internal or external conditions, it will never be
possible to achieve visual perception.
It was precisely to end the uncertainties and deviations which
threatened to diffuse errors regarding the scale of values of the
purposes of matrimony and of their reciprocal relations, that a few
years ago (March 10, 1944), We Ourselves drew up a declaration on the
order of those ends, pointing out what the very internal structure of
the natural disposition reveals. We showed what has been handed down by
Christian tradition, what the Supreme Pontiffs have repeatedly taught,
and what was then in due measure promulgated by the Code of Canon Law.
Not long afterwards, to correct opposing opinions, the Holy See, by a
public decree, proclaimed that it could not admit the opinion of some
recent authors who denied that the primary end of marriage is the
procreation and education of the offspring, or teach that the secondary
ends are not essentially subordinated to the primary end, but are on an
equal footing and independent of it.
Would this lead, perhaps, to Our denying or diminishing what is good
and just in personal values resulting from matrimony and its
realization? Certainly not, because the Creator has designed that for
the procreation of a new life human beings made of flesh and blood,
gifted with soul and heart, shall be called upon as men and not as
animals deprived of reason to be the authors of their posterity. It is
for this end that the Lord desires the union of husband and wife.
Indeed, the Holy Scripture says of God that He created man to His image
and He created him male and female, and willed—as is repeatedly
affirmed in Holy Writ—that "a man shall leave mother and father, and
shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh".
All this is therefore true and desired by God. But, on the other hand,
it must not be divorced completely from the primary function of
matrimony—the procreation of offspring. Not only the common work of
external life, but even all personal enrichment—spiritual and
intellectual—all that in married love as such is most spiritual and
profound, has been placed by the will of the Creator and of nature at
the service of posterity. The perfect married life, of its very nature,
also signifies the total devotion of parents to the well-being of their
children, and married love in its power and tenderness is itself a
condition of the sincerest care of the offspring and the guarantee of
its realization.
To reduce the common life of husband and wife and the conjugal act to a
mere organic function for the transmission of seed would be but to
convert the domestic hearth, the family sanctuary, into a biological
laboratory. Therefore, in Our allocution of September 29, 1949, to the
International Congress of Catholic Doctors, We expressly excluded
artificial insemination in marriage. The conjugal act, in its natural
structure, is a personal action, a simultaneous and immediate
cooperation of husband and wife, which by the very nature of the agents
and the propriety of the act, is the expression of the reciprocal gift,
which, according to Holy Writ, effects the union "in one flesh".
That is much more than the union of two genes, which can be effected
even by artificial means, that is, without the natural action of
husband and wife. The conjugal act, ordained and desired by nature, is
a personal cooperation, to which husband and wife, when contracting
marriage, exchange the right.
Therefore, when this act in its natural form is from the beginning
perpetually impossible, the object of the matrimonial contract is
essentially vitiated. This is what we said on that occasion: "Let it
not be forgotten: only the procreation of a new life according to the
will and the design of the Creator carries with it in a stupendous
degree of perfection the intended ends. It is at the same time in
conformity with the spiritual and bodily nature and the dignity of the
married couple, in conformity with the happy and normal development of
the child".
Advise the fiancée or the young married woman who comes to seek your
advice about the values of matrimonial life that these personal values,
both in the sphere of the body and the senses and in the sphere of the
spirit, are truly genuine, but that the Creator has placed them not in
the first, but in the second degree of the scale of values.
Free renunciation to fatherhood
To these considerations must be added another which tends to be
forgotten. All these secondary values of the procreative sphere and
activity are included in the ambit of the specific function of husband
and wife, which is to be authors and educators of a new life. A high
and noble duty! Yet one which does not pertain to the essence of a
complete human being, because, if the natural generative tendency does
not come to its realization, there is no diminution of the human
person, in any way or degree. The renunciation of this realization is
not—especially if made for more sublime purposes—a mutilation of
personal and spiritual values. Of such free renunciation for the love
of God's kingdom the Lord has said:"Non omnes capiunt verbum istud, sed
quibus datum est—Not all can accept this teaching; but to those to whom
it has been given".
To exalt beyond measure, as it is often done today, the generative
function, even in the just and moral form of married life, is therefore
not only an error and an aberration; it also bears with itself the
danger of intellectual and affective error, capable of preventing and
stifling good and lofty sentiments, especially in youth which is still
without experience and ignorant of life's delusions. For what normal
man, healthy in body and soul, would like to belong to the number of
those deficient in character and spirit?
May your apostolate enlighten the minds and inculcate in them this just
order of values, there where you exercise your profession, so that men
may conform to it in their judgments and conduct!
Human dignity in the conjugal act
This explanation of Ours on the functions of your professional
apostolate would be incomplete, if We did not add further a few more
words about the defense of human dignity in the use of the procreative
faculty.
The same Creator, Who in His bounty and wisdom willed to make use of
the work of man and woman, by uniting them in matrimony, for the
preservation and propagation of the human race, has also decreed that
in this function the parties should experience pleasure and happiness
of body and spirit. Husband and wife, therefore, by seeking and
enjoying this pleasure do no wrong whatever. They accept what the
Creator has destined for them.
Nevertheless, here also, husband and wife must know how to keep
themselves within the limits of a just moderation. As with the pleasure
of food and drink so with the sexual they must not abandon themselves
without restraint to the impulses of the senses. The right rule is
this: the use of the natural procreative disposition is morally lawful
in matrimony only, in the service of and in accordance with the ends of
marriage itself. Hence it follows that only in marriage with the
observing of this rule is the desire and fruition of this pleasure and
of this satisfaction lawful. For the pleasure is subordinate to the law
of the action whence it derives, and not vice versa—the action to the
law of pleasure. And this law, so very reasonable, concerns not only
the substance but also the circumstances of the action, so that, even
when the substance of the act remains morally safe, it is possible to
sin in the way it is performed.
The transgression of this law is as old as original sin. But in our
times there is the risk that one may lose sight of the fundamental
principle itself. At present, in fact, it is usual to support in words
and in writing (and this by Catholics in certain circles) the necessary
autonomy, the proper end, and the proper value of sexuality and of its
realization, independently of the purpose of procreating a new life.
There is a tendency to subject to a new examination and to a new norm
the very order established by God and not to admit any other restraint
to the way of satisfying the instinct than by considering the essence
of the instinctive act. In addition there would be substituted a
license to serve blindly and without restraint the whims and instincts
of nature in the place of the moral obligations to dominate passions;
and this sooner or later cannot but turn out to be a danger to morals,
conscience and human dignity.
If nature had aimed exclusively, or at least in the first place, at a
reciprocal gift and possession of the married couple in joy and
delight, and if it had ordered that act only to make happy in the
highest possible degree their personal experience, and not to stimulate
them to the service of life, then the Creator would have adopted
another plan in forming and constituting the natural act. Now, instead,
all this is subordinated and ordered to that unique, great law of the
"generatio et educatio prolix," namely the accomplishment of the
primary end of matrimony as the origin and source of life.
Unfortunately, unceasing waves of hedonism invade the world and
threaten to submerge in the swelling tide of thoughts, desires and acts
the whole marital life, not without serious dangers and grave prejudice
to the primary duty of husband and wife.
This anti-Christian hedonism too often is not ashamed to elevate itself
to a doctrine, inculcating the ardent desire to make always more
intense the pleasure in the preparation and in the performance of the
conjugal union, as if in matrimonial relations the whole moral law were
reduced to the normal performance of the act itself, and as if all the
rest, in whatever way it is done, were to be justified by the
expression of mutual affection, sanctified by the Sacrament of
Matrimony, worthy of praise and reward before God and conscience. There
is no thought at all of the dignity of man and of the Christian—a
dignity—which restrains the excess of sensuality.
No; the gravity and sanctity of the Christian moral law do not admit an
unchecked satisfaction of the sexual instinct tending only to pleasure
and enjoyment; they do not permit rational man to let himself be
mastered to such an extent, neither as regards the substance nor the
circumstances of the act.
There are some who would allege that happiness in marriage is in direct
proportion to the reciprocal enjoyment in conjugal relations. It is not
so: indeed, happiness in marriage is in direct proportion to the mutual
respect of the partners, even in their intimate relations; not that
they regard as immoral and refuse what nature offers and what the
Creator has given, but because this respect, and the mutual esteem
which it produces, is one of the strongest elements of a pure love, and
for this reason all the more tender.
In the performance of your profession, do your utmost to repel the
attack of this refined hedonism void of spiritual values and thus
unworthy of Christian married couples. Show how nature has given,
truly, the instinctive desire for pleasure and sanctions it in the
lawful marriage, not as an end in itself, but rather for the service of
life. Banish from your heart that cult of pleasure, and do your best to
prevent the spreading of a literature which considers as its duty the
description in full of the intimacies of married life under the pretext
of instructing, guiding and reassuring. In general, common sense,
natural instinct and a brief instruction on the clear and simple maxims
of Christian moral law, are sufficient to give peace to the tender
conscience of married people. If, in certain circumstances, a fiancée
or a young married woman were in need of further enlightenment on some
particular point, it is your duty to give them tactfully an explanation
in conformity with natural law and with a healthy Christian conscience.
This teaching of Ours has nothing to do with Manichaeism and Jansenism,
as some would have people believe in order to justify themselves. It is
only a defense of the honor of Christian matrimony and of the personal
dignity of the married couple. |
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