50 Anos da Humanae Vitae. Roberto de Mattei Avalia.

O renomado historiador católico Roberto de Mattei fez uma interessante análise da Humanae Vitae que celebra 50 anos hoje, no dia de Santiago Matamoros (Santiago de Compostela).

De Mattei argumentou que a Humanae Vitae deve ser exaltada pois ficou do lado do “imutável direito natural”, no momento em que a Igreja estava sob forte pressão de dentro e de fora para liberar medidas contraceptivas e até abortivas. 

Mas ele considera que a Humanae Vitae não foi profética, não previu o futuro iluminado pela graça divina, pois o problema atual não é o aumento populacional, mas, pelo contrário, o colapso demográfico e a Humanae Vitae aceitou que as famílias fizessem restrição à procriação por meio de “paternidade responsável”. 

Ele tem razão nesse aspecto. Inclusive, "paternidade responsável" hoje em dia é um dos termos preferidos dos defensores do aborto. Até a maior clínica de aborto dos Estados Unidos lembra esse termo, é chamada Planned Parenthood. E a ONU vive usando esse termo para defender aborto e métodos contraceptivos.

Mattei também considera que Paulo VI errou ao colocar no mesmo patamar o caráter unitivo do casamento (relacionamento do casal) com o caráter procriador. De Mattei ressalta que o caráter de procriação vem em primeiro lugar, respaldado pela Bíblia e pelas próprias palavras de Paulo VI previamente à Humanae Vitae. 

Acho que a Humanae Vitae pode ser defendida neste último aspecto pois logo no início mostra que o ponto é a defesa da procriação dentro da família.

Ele também comentou sobre como foi o processo de elaboração da Humanae Vitae, em que a Igreja brigava internamente, entre aqueles que defendiam os métodos de contracepção e até o aborto e aqueles que ficavam do lado da Tradição e da Bíblia na defesa da vida e do casamento.

Muito interessante. Leiam a entrevista de Mattei no site Life News.

Aqui vai parte do texto do site:

Humanae Vitae was courageous, but not prophetic: Catholic historian

LifeSite: Professor de Mattei, on July 25, 1968 Paul VI promulgated the encyclical Humanae Vitae. Fifty years later, what is your historical judgment on this event?

De Mattei: Humanae Vitae is an encyclical of great historical importance, because it recalled the existence of an immutable natural law at a time when the benchmark for culture and customs was a denial of lasting values amid historical change. Paul VI’s document was also a response to the ecclesiastical revolution that attacked the Church from within after the close of the Second Vatican Council. We must be grateful to Paul VI for not yielding to extremely strong pressure from media and ecclesiastical lobbies that wanted to change the teaching of the Church in this regard.

Unlike many people today, you claim that Humanae Vitae was not a prophetic document. Why?

In common parlance, prophetic is defined as the ability to foresee future events in the light of reason illumined by grace. In this respect, during the years of the Second Vatican Council, the 500 Council Fathers who demanded that communism be condemned were “prophets” in their prediction that this “intrinsic evil” would soon collapse. Those instead who opposed this condemnation — in the conviction that communism contained something good and would last for centuries — were not “prophets.”

In those same years, the myth of the demographic explosion was spreading, and everyone was talking about the need to reduce the number of births. Those like Cardinal Suenens, who asked that contraception be authorized in order to limit births, were not prophets; while Council Fathers like Cardinals Ottaviani and Browne, who opposed such requests by recalling the words of Genesis: “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28), were prophets. 

The problem facing the Christian West today is certainly not one of overpopulation but of demographic collapse.  Humanae vitae was not a prophetic encyclical, because it accepted the principle of controlling births in the form of “responsible parenthood,” even though it was a courageous document in reiterating the Church’s condemnation of contraception and abortion. In this respect it deserves to be celebrated.

Some have suggested that Humanae Vitae offered a new teaching in recalling the inseparability of the two ends of marriage, the procreative and the unitive, and put these ends on an equal footing? Do you agree?

The inseparability of the two ends of marriage is part of the doctrine of the Church, and Humanae Vitae rightly recalls this. However, in order to avoid any misunderstanding, we have to remember that there is a hierarchy of ends. According to doctrine of the Church, marriage is, by its very nature, a juridical-moral institution elevated by Christianity to the dignity of a Sacrament. Its principal end is the procreation of offspring, which is not a simple biological function and cannot be separated from the conjugal act. 

Indeed, Christian marriage is aimed at giving children to God and to the Church, so that they might be future citizens of Heaven. As Saint Thomas teaches (Summa Contra Gentiles 4, 58), marriage makes the spouses “propagators and preservers of spiritual life, according to a ministry at once corporal and spiritual,” which consists in “generating offspring and educating them in divine worship” (Eph. 5: 28). Parents do not directly communicate supernatural life to their children, but must ensure its development by passing on to them the inheritance of faith, beginning with baptism. For this reason, the principal end of marriage also involves the education of children: a work — as Pius XII affirms in an address on May 19, 1956 — which by its scope and consequences far surpasses that of generation.

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You note in your article that one of the new elements included in Monsignor Marengo’s book is the complete text of the first draft of the encyclical, which was titled De nascendi prolis. You also note how, through a series of events, this encyclical was transformed into Humanae Vitae. Can you tell us more about how this transformation occurred?  

The history of Humanae Vitae is complex, and it caused great anguish. The beginning of this story is the Council Fathers’ rejection of the preparatory schema on family and marriage, drawn up by Vatican II’s preparatory commission and approved by John XXIII in July 1962. The chief architect of the turning point was Cardinal Leo-Joseph Suenens, the Archbishop of Brussels, who had a profound influence on Gaudium et Spes and “piloted” the ad hoc commission on the birth control established by John XXIII and enlarged by Paul VI. 

In 1966, this commission produced a text in which the majority of experts expressed their support for contraception. The following two years were controversial and confusing, as the new documents published by Monsignor Gulfredo Marengo confirm. The majority opinion, announced by the National Catholic Reporter in 1967, was countered by a minority opinion opposing the use of contraceptive methods. Paul VI then appointed a new study group, directed by his theologian, Monsignor Colombo. 

After much discussion, they arrived at De nascendi prolis. But then another unexpected turn of events occurred, because the French translators expressed strong reservations about the document. Paul VI made new modifications, and finally, on July 25, 1968, Humanae Vitae was published. 

The difference between the two documents was that the first was more “doctrinal,” while the second had a more “pastoral” character. According to Monsignor Marengo, they felt “the wish to avoid that the search for doctrinal clarity be interpreted as insensitive rigidity.” The traditional doctrine of the Church was confirmed, but the doctrine on the ends of marriage was not expressed with sufficient clarity.

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