CHAPEL HILL -- When recently President Barack Obama required that employees of educational institutions, hospitals and other agencies affiliated with religious groups be provided with insurance coverage for contraceptives, a storm of opposition erupted.
Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, head of the American Catholic bishops, wrote that "to force Americans to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their health care is literally unconscionable."
But would Catholics be violating their consciences if given free access to birth control devices through their insurance as part of health care reform? Nothing would oblige them to use the coverage if they believed it to be immoral. More significantly, national surveys consistently show that the vast majority of American Catholics not only believe that the use of contraceptives is moral but that they consider their use a moral duty!
There is a disconnect between official church teaching and pastoral practice. In the grass-roots world of parish life, the prevailing policy is "don't ask; don't tell." Few Catholics consider the use of birth control a sin, and very few priests question or challenge them about it. One is not likely to hear a priest preach against birth control. If he does, the majority of his congregants will either shrug it off as "Father is old-fashioned" or they will find another church.
This wasn't always so.
In 1968, when Pope Paul VI issued the encyclical Humanae Vitae, which reiterated the Catholic Church's ban on most forms of birth control, a storm of protest erupted. Scores of Catholic theologians signed a statement opposing the position, and many priests were suspended from their ministries for refusing to go along with the policy.
More than that, a silent army of Catholics decided that they'd had enough and left a church whose credibility they no longer accepted. The church has never recovered from the tsunami of disillusion precipitated by Humanae Vitae.
Why is Rome so adamant in its opposition to contraception?
The answer stems from a decision made at the First Vatican Council in 1870. Feeling besieged by anti-religious political and cultural forces, the pope promulgated the doctrine of papal infallibility. The church - that is, the central government - was protected by God from making mistakes when it came to doctrine and morals.
Included in the moral code was the teaching on contraception. At the time, all major religions opposed birth control. Modern contraceptives had not yet been developed. As thinking about sex and family developed, other religions changed. Unfortunately, the Catholic church was trapped; to allow a change would be to undermine its credibility. If it was "wrong" about contraception, might it not be wrong about other things as well?
How do the vast majority of Catholics justify disobedience to a clear and consistent teaching of the church?
They do so by using the principle of the primacy of conscience. They listen to the pope but they also listen to their conscience. More often than not the decision is made that to use medically safe means available to control family size is the moral thing to do.
A lesson on this matter might be learned from the Mormon church, noted for its commitment to family. In 1983, the president of the church spoke of "the joy that is to be found only when there are children in the home [but] I am willing to leave the question of numbers to the man and the woman and the Lord."
Is there a way out of the snare into which the hierarchy of the Catholic church has entangled itself?
Yes. It can draw from its rich heritage the principle of theological development - that truth emerges over time; that not everything is understood fully all at once; that light is given only as we are ready to see. This happened with usury, with slavery, with the rights of women. The human race continues to learn; so should the church. It is not infallible.
William Powers is the author of "Tar Heel Catholics: A History of Catholicism in North Carolina."
