Although in this country official Church celebrations to mark the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae have been somewhat muted, there have been several unofficial acknowledgements of the significance of the document, not least this excellent initiative of Family Publications. My own view of the encyclical is that never was so much owed by so many to one heroic man: Paul VI. It reinforces one’s confidence that the Holy Spirit does indeed guide the Vicar of Christ – despite our 40 subsequent years wandering in the wilderness of revolt and disobedience.

Fr Woodall, who teaches moral theology both at Maryvale and in Rome, has employed the format of having the encyclical on the left page and his own commentary facing it on the right. This enables readers who might be confused by the papal style of writing to actually understand what is being said and why. Fr Woodall makes it clear that the Commission appointed to investigate married love and its licit conjugal expression was advisory only, not magisterial; this explains why the Holy Father was free to decide against the majority decision which came out in favour of artificial contraception (with all the usual provisos, of course).

As well as a particular commentary, the author includes a general commentary that takes issue with all the objections to Humanae Vitae in the years since its publication: in particular the “authoritative-but not-infallible-therefore-not-binding-in-conscience” ploy beloved of free-thinking Catholics. He emphasises that the encyclical confirmed what had always been the ordinary teaching of the bishops of the Church and here proclaimed at the highest level of magisterial authority. Indeed, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch affirmed that Pope Paul could not have expressed himself differently. The author quotes the philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe: “The fact that this doctrine may not have been infallibly proposed...does not show that the substantive hard message of this encyclical may perhaps be wrong.”

Fr Woodall also deals deftly with that other hoary old objection: that there is no difference between artificial contraception and natural methods of avoiding pregnancy. He comments on all the biotechnological developments in the last 40 years, beginning with test-tube babies in 1978, showing how Pope Paul’s teaching on married love provides the only honest answer to IVF and all the bizarre biological techniques that have flowed from it.

I have just one query about this otherwise admirable text: a reference to John Paul II’s Evangelium Vitae, note 74 (it should actually be note 73), which seemingly permits Catholics to support laws that restrict abortion. Having supported David Alton’s abortion amendment Bill of 1987, my own mind on this subject was altered for good by reading Colin Harte’s Changing Unjust Laws Justly: Pro-life Solidarity with the Last and the Least (Catholic University of America Press). Both Cardinal Levada of the CDF and Bishop Sgreccia, former President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, have personally confirmed to Harte that his interpretation of note 73 is by no means ruled out. Read his book yourself and make up your own mind.

© 2008 Francis Phillips

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