|
Spirit & Life:
Human Life International e-Newsletter
Volume 01, Number 36 | Friday, Oct. 06, 2006
The beloved founder of Human Life International, Fr. Paul Marx, was
not known to mince words when it came to what he called the
"conspiracy of silence" from the pulpits of our Church on the issue
of contraception, but his insights of twenty and thirty years ago
were right on target and remain true to this day: "Future
generations," he said, "will wonder why so many Catholic bishops and
priests in the West didn't see contraception as a seminal evil and
the chief cause of the Church's swift decline." There is the core
issue. Priestly silence about contraception is deadly both to the
Church and to our society.
To this day the vast majority of Catholic clergy refuse to talk
about contraception despite their moral obligation to do so. I can
tell you that it is not only in the United States that this is the
case; it is true in every part of the world. The reasons for this
negligence range from outright heresy to lack of moral courage to
inexcusable ignorance of the subject matter. Whatever the reason,
the effect is the same: something I call clerical contraception.
Contraception itself is a rejection of God's sovereignty over one's
marriage and a refusal to obey the Lord's command to "be fruitful
and multiply." The priest, though not married, analogously
contracepts the life-giving seed of truth when he refuses to preach
the Catholic Faith-all of it. Faith comes through hearing, says St.
Paul, and it is through the priestly ministry that Christ transmits
the Faith to His bride, the Church, so that she can be fruitful and
multiply the souls who are brought to salvation.
This is probably the main reason why so many Catholics today
contracept or sterilize themselves and see absolutely no
contradiction in receiving the Eucharist every Sunday and believing
themselves in perfect communion with the Church. They've never been
admonished that it is a mortal sin to use contraception or get
sterilized. They've never been told of the physical and spiritual
danger of these practices, and they've never been made aware of the
magnificent, life-giving alternatives that the Church offers to the
Ideology of Infertility.
Priests who are silent about the teaching on contraception also
forget two very important things: first, priestly vocations
generally come from large families. Failure to preach openness to
life and generosity with children has a direct effect on how many
men will be standing in the trenches with us later on. Contracepting
this teaching has the same effect as contracepting the marital act:
sterility. The persistent sterility of priestly vocations in the
West is caused by priests who are silent about the plague of
contraception among the laity and forget that their own vocations
are the result of their parents' generosity with life. Overworked
priests will be reaping the fruits of their silence on contraception
for a long time.
Secondly, priestly silence about contraception has eternal
consequences. The price of that silence is the loss of souls.
Contracepting men and women who are not warned of their sin and who
therefore do not repent of it risk the death of their immortal
souls, and that is a scandal of immense proportions. To be warned is
to be forewarned, especially about something so crucial. Perhaps the
only danger of greater consequence is the danger to the priests
themselves who don't do their job: they risk their own spiritual
deaths because in the end they will be held accountable for
preaching the Church's full message "in season and out of season."
All priests should read the Lord's message to the prophet Ezekiel to
know the high stakes of failing to preach the fullness of Christ's
teaching: "If I say to the wicked man, You shall surely die; and you
do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his wicked conduct
so that he may live: that wicked man shall die for his sin, but I
will hold you responsible for his death" (Ez 3:18). May every priest
take this warning to heart!
Sincerely Yours in Christ,
Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer
President, Human Life International
Copyright 2006 - Human Life International
|
