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I There is no plausible alternative; Pope Paul’s positive invitation to chastity.

II The invitation endangered; The First Vatican Council’s requirements for infallibility; The meaning of “definit” explained by Bishop Gasser, Speaker for the Commission on Faith;

III Relevant Latin text from the Acta of Vatican 1;

IV Elucidation of the terms “definit” and “doctrina” by Bishop Manning of Westminster and Bishop Spalding of Baltimore, members of the Commission on Faith at Vatican 1;

V Humanae Vitae fully meets the specification formulated by the First Vatican Council; The scope of “infallible” explained by Bishop Gasser; a parallel in the field of natural knowledge;

Conclusion: The encyclical Humanae Vitae infallibly defines the truth concerning the regulation of births.

Surely, there is no comment on the Holy Father Pope Paul’s encyclical Humanae Vitae more common than that “of course, it is not infallible.” That means, equally as a matter of course, that it may be wrong. If the pontiff’s message must be taken as provisional then, when he says that he speaks in virtue of the mandate entrusted to him by Christ, we must assume that the moral code of the Savior is subject to amendment by the Church. If Christ’s vicar now gives his reply to “grave questions” concerning birth control, abortion and sterilization and knows that his answer is not to be taken as final, why does he not say so? Why keep people in suspense for years only to give that anxiety new life? How could the Savior mandate his vicar to impose “loyal internal and external obedience” to a ruling about a “divine law” which is here today and gone tomorrow and always doubtful? Doubtful laws do not oblige. If Humanae Vitae is only “authentic” for now, the strong temptation will be for people to draw on the future as many did (illicitly) over the rules of Eucharistic fasting before they were made easier: soon he will “come round” to our view!

In brief, it is inconceivable that the Lord gave His vicar power to teach scandalous uncertainty in such intimate matters, in an area where weaker members are already totally at sea.

There is no alternative: either Humanae Vitae is unchangeable, infallible doctrine or it is an excusable blunder.

Having thus experimented with a proof by exclusion we shall presently prove positively that, as a matter of fact, it is infallible moral doctrine. We shall not be the first to do so: in an admirable lecture in Dayton, Ohio, Rev. John A. Hardon, S.J., elucidated the infallible value of the encyclical on the grounds that it is, as indeed, the Holy Father mentions several times, a continuation of the teaching of the Ordinary Magisterium of the Church. Our positive demonstration will go along other lines. But first we attempt to draw attention to the beautiful positive message of the encyclical.

The pontiff’s message comes as a shock; it gives the Catholic world a shaking up, one aspect of which seems not yet to have been grasped very clearly. For the encyclical is not just a cold prohibition of a congenial way of life; it is a new, sudden invitation to a higher life which has been kept out of sight for the past many years. It is trite now-a-days for preachers to remind us that the affluent world has gone mad about sex. The Holy Father opens the vista of a Catholic world where such preaching will be superfluous, because both married and single are already enamored of chastity.

Spurning the objection that a celibate and a religious cannot possibly understand the impact of physical conjugal love, we dare to doubt that oft-repeated argument for contraception that abstinence will endanger mutual love and the stability of the union, hinting that union of hearts and religious goals give little strength. We make bold to assert that there is far higher ways of sustaining and immensely fortifying conjugal love, namely, abstaining by grace and strength of will jointly to turn to direct union with God.

Pope Paul urges couples to think more about the rights (and the power and inescapable sanctions) of that third partner in the contract, the Divine Trinity.

One cannot believe that anyone is going to hold that the family, society in general and the Church are going to be well served by a systematic down-grading of a virtue which is intrinsic to Catholic holiness, chastity. Only those who have not tried to live up to the higher standards regard them as lower; only those, surely, who have never, for the love of Christ, taken the plunge and dared to forego a psychophysical pleasure, are unable to imagine the ineffable, constructive contentment of abstinence, absolute for the religious, periodic for the spouse, obligatory for everybody.

We believe we appreciate the awesome task of the local magisterium and its helpers, the clergy, in implementing the negative norms of the Holy See; we dare to opine that we shall have far more success with it if we open the eyes of the faithful boldly to the calm and lofty beauty of the positive message: chastity.

Let us not so concentrate on helping the consciences of spouses to measure out sex that we fail to raise their minds and wills, as children of God, to that eternal fulfillment which, for the chaste, is beyond all computation.

One’s insistence on this matter springs not from a cold defence of truth, but from a fear that an epochal invitation to Catholic and non-Catholic moral reform may be disregarded; an invitation to begin to believe in chastity again, to trust in God and His commandments. We feel that the encyclical will be adhered to more willingly if it becomes evident that it is not subject to change, ever.

One year before Humanae Vitae, that other invitation, Populorum Progressio, promulgated to re-energize our social justice in relation to the developing nations, for all the co-operation it produced, might almost as well not have been written. Neither was the Holy Father then, nor is he now, at fault. If the world continues to be plagued with social and moral unrest, surely, after atheistic Communism, the greatest cause will have been the tepidity of the People of God.

The requirements for a pronouncement of the supreme pontiff to be infallible were, of course, stated by the First Vatican Council in the year 1870: the Bishop of Rome must be teaching officially, as universal Vicar of Christ on earth; he must be addressing his message to the whole Catholic body; he must define his subject clearly and, finally, that subject must lie within the areas of faith or morals.1

I believe there is an almost universal misapprehension of the meaning of the verb “define” in this document of Vatican 1. Actually, as we shall demonstrate, the encyclical Humanae Vitae answers to the specification of the First Vatican Council as an infallible definition. The expression “anathema sit” (“may he be excommunicated”) addressed to any of the faithful who may refuse their assent to a teaching, a censure with which many solemn definitions wind up, is simply not an indispensable mark of doctrine proposed (imposed) as infallible. The “anathema” is, rather, a pre-declared judgment upon the reaction of a church-member to the definition of a truth; a warning of the malice of any possible dissent. The “anathema” passes from the area of instruction to that of behavior: it declares that, if one does not give assent, one is more than wrong, one is a sinner, unfaithful.

In Humanae Vitae the anathema is not used. We believe that is because, against the intentions of its author, its force might pass across from the demand to accept the truth of this moral doctrine to become a ready-made denouncement of any and every failure to live up to its norms. Nothing, as a reading of the encyclical shows, was farther from the mind of Pope Paul VI than that.

In his treatise on the Church, De Ecclesia, that capable theologian Bishop D’Herbigny, mentions that, to constitute his definitions, the supreme pontiff need not use, is not restricted to, any particular “word or formula.”2 We add, specifically, that he need not say “I hereby define” although, in some instances, he does. The fact of this latitude was noted also in the year 1896 by an Orthodox objicient, General Alexander Kireeff, in a Correspondence on Infallibility with an anonymous German (speaking) Jesuit. When discussing the dependability of papal declarations the general complains that “There is not a word or hint in the text (of the Vatican decree) requiring the fulfillment of any formalities . . . is that a guarantee?”3

After the final text of the definition on infallibility had been discussed and commented upon by the Fathers at Vatican 1, the Speaker (Relator) for the Commission on Faith, Bishop Gasser, summed up and explained: “Concerning the word ‘definit’ (defines) in our formula: from many of the comments it is evident it has engendered scruples in some of the Most Reverend Fathers. Thus, they either struck the word out, or replaced it with ‘decernit’ (to decide, settle) or the like; or else they used both ‘definit’ and ‘decernit.’ ” Let me, in a few words, say how this word “definit” is to be understood.

“Certainly the Commission on Faith did not intend it to be taken in a forensic sense, such that it would signify only an end put to a controversy over heresy or doctrine which is strictly of faith; no, the word ‘definit’ means that the pope directly and conclusively utters his pronouncement about doctrine concerning faith and morals in such a way that each and every one of the faithful can be sure of what the Holy See, the Roman Pontiff, has in mind. This includes that he (the common believer, Ed.) may know for certain that this or that doctrine is held to be heresy, or close to heresy, certain or erroneous, etc. This, then, is the sense of ‘definite.’ ”4 There is nothing said about any requirement that the pontiff should say reflexly “I define.”

Acta et Decreta SS. Concilii Vaticani Collectio Lacensis, Vol. VII, Schneeman Gerhard Ed., 1870–90, Frib. Columns 474–475.

Speaking of the nature which a decree of the Vicar of Christ must exhibit if it is to be recognizable as defined doctrine, at the First Vatican Council the Speaker for the Commission on the Faith, Bishop V. Gasser, explained that, for one thing, the pontiff must make it clear what he “has in mind.” The bishop does not say what is, of course, necessarily understood, that we shall judge what the pope has in mind from what he says. Now, if there is one thing more than another upon which all commentators of Humanae Vitae, both friendly and skeptical, throughout the world, have shown themselves in agreement it is that Pope Paul said something for certain, made it as plain as could be what he meant: he explicitly condemned in principle every single act of abortion and contraception as, objectively, grave sin.

We draw attention to the fact that we have not said, neither did His Holiness say, that every single act of contraception performed by any given individual is, subjectively, in them, a grave sin. The Holy Father lays down the doctrine of principle; how faithfully individual consciences accept it is another matter entirely. We repeat that the condemnation by anathema, in our opinion, was mercifully withheld out of pastoral prudence and love of the People of God.

A matter will be defined, then, if, to begin with, the Roman Pontiff states it clearly as belonging to some rank of objective religious truth, for or against: for or against the faith, “certain or erroneous” etc. Therefore, it has not necessarily to be a matter of divine revelation and faith: it can be proposed as just certain (“certam”). We hold that the message of Humanae Vitae is one such truth. It is not doctrine de fide definita not defined revelation, but it is doctrina definita, it is defined doctrine. We shall complete the evidence in due course.

In his pastoral to the clergy after Vatican Council I Bishop Manning (afterwards cardinal) of Westminster, England, who had been on the Commission on the Faith, gave his understanding of the two words “defines” and “doctrine.” He says that the word “definit” here signifies the precise judgment or sentence in which any such traditional truth of faith or morals may be authoritatively formulated. . . .” We recall that in Humanae Vitae, more than once, Pope Paul reminds us that he is repeating the “constant teaching of the Church.” (No. 10) Bishop Manning continues: “The word ‘definit’ has two senses, the one forensic and narrow, the other wide and common; and this, in the present instance, is more correct. . . . The wide and common sense is that of an authoritative termination of questions which have been in doubt and debate”; it expresses “the judgment or sentence thence resulting.” Was it not, precisely to end such a debate that Pope Paul said “we now intend, by virtue of the mandate entrusted to us by Christ, to give our reply. . . .” (No. 6) For Bishop Manning, again, the word “define”: “Signifies the final decision by which any matter is put into a doctrinal form.”5

Bishop Manning of Westminster then turns to explain what the word “doctrine” used in the definition of infallibility promulgated by Vatican I embraces: “Under the term ‘definition’ . . . are included all dogmatic judgments.” This, he points out, will comprise dogmatic statements about the meaning of Scriptural texts; about the authenticity of ecumenical councils; the pontifical approval of the writings of St. Augustine on grace and freedom as “true definitions of doctrine in faith and morals.” In this document of the First Vatican Council, therefore, as is “definit” so also is “doctrina” a wide term. To conclude the witness of Bishop Manning, he gives as one more instance “The condemnation of the five propositions on grace taken from his (Jansenius’) Augustinus, in the sense in which he meant them, was a dogmatic judgment, a doctrinal definition.”6

After Vatican 1 another participant, a member also of the Commission on Faith, Bishop Spalding of Baltimore, wrote to his flock explaining that, for a pontifical decree to be infallible: “the pontiff must define, or finally settle, a doctrine” this in contradistinction from what it would mean if he were “merely (to) declare, more or less strongly, a belief.”7 The prelate remarks that, since Jansenism, it has been customary to mention and insist upon internal assent. Pope Paul has that, too, in his Humanae Vitae No. 28, addressed particularly to priests and moral theologians: “Be the first to give . . . the example of loyal internal and external obedience. . . .” Again in Bishop Spalding’s commentary as in the others, there is complete silence about anathemas and about restricting definitions to divinely revealed truths.

If we line up the message of Humanae Vitae with the specification for defining for papal utterances established at the First Vatican Council in 1870, first, as to its being official, that is to say “ex cathedra” we find Pope Paul writing that “after mature reflection and assiduous prayer, in virtue of the mandate entrusted to us by Christ, we now intend to give our reply to these grave questions.” (No. 6) His saying “we intend” makes what follows a conscious, responsible act of authority. Moreover, this “reply” does not express a mere opinion, for the Vicar of Christ says “We must once again declare that the direct interruption . . . etc., is absolutely excluded.” (No. 14) It is a statement of what he holds to be “the truth.” (No. 27) It is not merely an opinion also because Pope Paul requires of us “loyal internal and external obedience,” to exact which for any matter about which he thought there could still remain objective doubt would, of course, be ecclesiastically impossible; unless (since the servant is not greater than his Master of Whom they said He had a devil) unless, and they have said it, unless Pope Paul is out of his mind!

Secondly, we imagine no one will attempt to weaken the encyclical by pretending that it is not addressed to the entire Church, for the reader sees at once that it is, explicitly, obviously.

Further, as we have seen, the Holy Father unmistakably focuses his subject, and he repeats several times that what he is teaching is divine law. (Nos. 19, 23, 25, 31) Until anyone can demonstrate that, in the theology of the Pontiff, divine law is a variable, we must prudently assume that, as he conceives it, divine law is something very defi- nite and unchangeable. The Supreme Pastor, therefore, intends to be putting before the faithful for unanimous acceptance, a clear-cut, true, sharply identified doctrine when he says that “direct interruption . . . directly willed and procured abortion . . . direct sterilization . . . are excluded from the licit means of regulating birth.” Finally, the subject-matter is obviously an article of Christian morality. Hence, in his Humanae Vitae Pope Paul is making a definition according to the formula promulgated by the First Vatican Council. Yet some may find difficulty in recognizing it as infallible, perhaps, though not properly grasping the scope of the term.

The question is not whether or not divine law, or whether “the constant teaching of the Church” (Nos. 6, 10) which the Vicar of Christ here protests he is only relaying, are infallible; but whether or not the Pope himself has infallibly identified the “divine law” and the “constant teaching of the Church” on the regulation of birth.

Returning to the report of the Relator, Bishop V. Gasser, at the First Vatican Council, we find him explaining that infallibility can be an attribute common to a variety of declarations of the popes just as, also, of a council together with the reigning pontiff, on different levels of knowledge. At each level the knowledge is sure and the teaching infallible: “Thus, some things . . . are known as certain by faith; they are such that to deny that the pontiff was infallible when he propounded them would make one a heretic, whether or not one accepted the doctrine itself; other decrees of the Roman pontiff, as far as infallibility goes, are also certain . . . but only with a theological certitude, so that, if anyone denied that the pontiff was infallible in uttering decrees of this kind, he would not be openly a heretic as such, but he would assent to a most grave error and, in so erring, would commit a grave sin. Therefore in our formula” Bishop Gasser continues, “we have enunciated the whole scope in one sentence under, however, a double concept: both generic and specific. This means that, from the generic concept only the general object of infallibility appears, and from the specific it is made apparent whether the certitude of the infallibility is de fide (the certitude of faith, Ed.) or only theological, and so on.”

Thus “as far as infallibility goes” there are religious, theological truths which the Bishop of Rome can proclaim which, though not de fide divina (to be held by divine faith) nevertheless share that inerrancy. They are such as the encyclical Humanae Vitae, comprised within the defi- nition of papal infallibility promulgated by the First Vatican Council.

There is, of course, a parallel in the natural order where intuitive, mathematical, scientific and metaphysical certitudes are all truly such, but each in its own domain. In the world of revelation and theology there exist the several certitudes each stamped with that extra, supernatural note: Infallibility. We believe that we have established that one of these is instanced by the infallible certitude of the moral teaching in Humanae Vitae.

3. “Correspondence on Infallibility,” issued by the Russian Orthodox American Journal, 323 2nd Ave., New York, 1896, p. 81.

4. As an appendix we reproduce Columns 474 and 475 of the Collectio Lacensis, Vol. VII, Schneeman Gerhard: Acta et Decreta Sacr. Concil. Recent., from which this and other excerpts are made.

5. “The Vatican Council and its Definitions,” Manning, Second ed., 1871, Pp. 93–95, Sadlier Barclay St., London.

7. “Pastoral letter,” 19th July, 1870, p. 14, Kelly Piet and Co., Baltimore.