PLEASE, DEAR READER(S), FORWARD THIS TO ANY AND EVERYONE YOU KNOW WHO MIGHT BE ABLE TO GET IT TO POPE LEO.
To: His Holiness, Pope Leo XIV
Apostolic Palace
00120 Vatican City
Most Holy Father:
The news that you have been chosen to lead the Church has made me hopeful that the Church will, as you have stated, move “from words to action” regarding social and environmental justice. While I am not a member of your faith, I have always admired the actions of Catholics like yourself who have walked what I call the “Jesus Walk”, i.e., practiced love and compassion for the downtrodden and the poor.
Because I share your conviction that we must all take personal responsibility for ensuring the future habitability and sustainability of our planet, I respectfully want to offer a suggestion I hope you will consider.
The church’s history of the theological and moral issues involved in organ transplantation and contraception is in some respects similar. While evolution of the views on organ transplantation has dramatically alleviated human suffering, the perspective on contraception has remained unchanged, and yet holds the potential to similarly transform the lives of many, and massively benefit our planet at this crucial time of over-population.
The Church’s history of the theological and moral issues involved in organ transplantation and contraception is in some respects similar. At one time, the view of organ transplantation as mutilation eventually gave way to the doctrine that donation is the key moral consideration involved. I believe that the following words of St. Thomas Aquinas could well pertain to this distinction as well as one that obtains in the practice of contraception:
I answer that, A sin, in human acts, is that which is against the order of reason. Now the order of reason consists in its ordering everything to its end in a fitting manner. Wherefore it is no sin if one, by the dictate of reason makes use of certain things in a fitting manner and order for the end to which they are adapted, provided this end be something truly good. Now just as the preservation of the bodily nature of one individual is a true good, so, too, is the preservation of the nature of the human species a very great good. And just as the use of food is directed to the preservation of life in the individual, so is the use of venereal acts directed to the preservation of the whole human race. Hence Augustine says (De Bono Conjug xvi): “What food is to a man’s well being, such is sexual intercourse to the welfare of the whole human race”. Wherefore just as the use of food can be without sin, if it be taken in due manner and order, as required for the welfare of the body, so also the use of venereal acts can be without sin, provided they be performed in due manner and order, in keeping with the end of human procreation. ( Summa Theologica, Volume 4 (Part III, First Section)
By emphasizing the importance of the character of the intended end of an act and acknowledging the relation between procreation and the preservation of the human species, Aquinas leaves open the possibility of an interpretation in which the true good of the individual is conditioned by the “very great good” of the preservation of the species. When this obligation to the species is coupled with the concomitant obligation for Catholics to act as stewards of God’s creation, contraception becomes a practice that serves to preserve our species. I believe this is the same concern found in Pope John Paul II’s message for World Peace Day, 1990:
Theology, philosophy and science all speak of a harmonious universe, of a “cosmos” endowed with its own integrity, its own internal, dynamic balance. This order must be respected. The human race is called to explore this order, to examine it with due care and to make use of it while safeguarding its integrity….Today, the dramatic threat of ecological breakdown is teaching us the extent to which greed and selfishness—both individual and collective—are contrary to the order of creation, an order which is characterized by mutual interdependence.
Relevant here are also Pope Francis’s remarks In response to Vice President Vance’s conception of the “order of love” which places the nuclear family first and strangers only much later. Pope Francis disagrees, stressing that “God is both Justice and Compassion” and that justice “directs all the virtues to the common good” of humanity.
Were the church to change its position on contraception in the manner here suggested, the effect would be enormously beneficial to the health of our species and the others around us. Am I mistaken in believing that this is possibly one of the structural causes of the inequality of which you have spoken?
I sincerely hope I have in no way offended you or shown any disrespect to you in the above. I truly believe you are doing Jesus’s work, and for that I am very grateful.
George Cattermole, Ph.D.
San Gregorio, California