In PAPAL POLITICS AND WOMEN author Ann Pettifer provides a comprehensive overview of the contraception debate within the Catholic Church and the actions of the far-right leadership to control billions of women.
"An equally important feature of the debate--about which the non-Catholic world is largely ignorant--is that, for decades, hostility to birth control has been the touchstone of papal authority. The Vatican has long believed that if it lost control of this issue, the whole edifice of papal infallibility might collapse like a house of cards.
"With the Church under siege on many fronts--the ordination of women and mandatory celibacy come to mind--it might seem odd at first that it should so fanatically stake its authority on holding the line on contraception.
"In 1968, in spite of a thorough investigation by a blue-ribbon Vatican commission, which had concluded that the Church should reverse its teaching on contraception, the Pope at the time, Paul VI, decided otherwise in his encyclical, Humanae Vitae. The commissions report was ignored and the Churchs opposition to birth control was reiterated."
She also reveals the machinations of the "Catholic fascist cult Opus Dei," revealing some of the questions surrounding the death of Pope John Paul I after only 33 days in office and the election and consolidation of power of the present pontif.
Looking for a possible reason for the untimely death of John Paul I, she provides us with this quote from the pope to be, "I assure all of you, that bishops would be more than happy to find a doctrine that declared the use of contraceptives legitimate under certain conditions."
And what we might look forward to in the future:
"Any
UN conference on population or ecology may expect the Vatican, usually in the
person of Joachim Navarro Valls, its chief spokesman (and an influential member
of Opus Dei), to use its observer status to sabotage programs and funding for
family planning. . . papal reproductive politics are played out with
devastating effect in vulnerable, developing countries, where women must
incubate babies they cannot feed--much less educate adequately. . . .as the U.S. gears up for elections in the
year 2000, the Vatican has begun to develop what it hopes will be a winning
strategy.
A landmark report by the first woman admitted as
an undergraduate to the University of Notre Dame. From: on the issues,
Fall 1998
PAPAL POLITICS AND WOMEN
This war over reproductive issues is one Rome is not prepared to lose, for womens control of their own fertility leads to womens empowerment. The clerical mind is terrified of women; the idea of real equality between the sexes is very threatening to the Catholic male shaman.
by Ann Pettifer
A crop of ads has been appearing in the secular
and religious press, challenging the teaching of the Catholic Church on artificial
contraception. Placed by Catholics for Contraception (a project of Catholics
for a Free Choice), the ads are well-crafted and informative; they reveal that
the Churchs reactionary position is
basically aimed at keeping women subservient--making childbearing their primary function. In an essay on
rethinking single-sex education, the conservative monthly Catholic World
Report opined: Of all tasks
that present themselves to young women, the most important is surely the care
and formation of souls. When a young mother holds in her arms her new baby, she
holds a tiny barbarian with the potential for becoming a saint.
An equally important feature of the debate--about which the non-Catholic world is largely
ignorant--is that, for decades,
hostility to birth control has been the touchstone of papal authority. The
Vatican has long believed that if it lost control of this issue, the whole
edifice of papal infallibility might collapse like a house of cards.
At the end of the second millennium, the monarchical
papacy is looking increasingly bankrupt. With the Church under siege on many
fronts--the ordination of women and
mandatory celibacy come to mind--it
might seem odd at first that it should so fanatically stake its authority on
holding the line on contraception. But the sanction is highly effective,
because it works on a powerful, primitive level. By intruding on the most
intimate part of life, the hierarchy keeps the laity insecure and conscious of
its subordinate nature. It is an axiom of maturity that we protect the privacy
of our sexual selves; there is something terribly unsettling about having the
Pope, so to speak, in the bedroom. Jesuit theologian Avery Dulles, scion of the
baleful House of Dulles--his father,
John Foster Dulles, and his uncle Alan Dulles, who were both Cold War hawks
during the McCarthy era, worked respectively as Secretary of State and Director
of the CIA under Eisenhower--was
unusually direct on the subject at a recent Common Ground conference. (Common
Ground is a cautious attempt by the Catholic hierarchy to bring progressive and
conservative Catholics together to discern areas of moral agreement, especially
in the explosive arena of abortion.) The laity, said Dulles, who teaches at
Catholic University in Washington, D.C., should not be consulted on matters of
doctrine because in the modern
secular world. . . it is hard to determine who are the truly faithful and
mature Catholics deserving of consultation. In ripping Stalinist form, he went on to state that authority is
not obliged to give reasons for its edicts or decisions: Faith,
he proclaimed, is acceptance on the
basis of authority not reason, and furthermore, proposing reasons may stimulate
contrary reasons, leading to fruitless debate.
In 1968, in spite of a thorough investigation by
a blue-ribbon Vatican commission, which had concluded that the Church should
reverse its teaching on contraception, the Pope at the time, Paul VI, decided
otherwise in his encyclical, Humanae Vitae. The commissions report was ignored
and the Churchs opposition to birth
control was reiterated. Rank and file Catholics were stunned. How the Popes decision was reached is shrouded in secrecy,
but we can be sure that he didnt make
it alone. In all likelihood it was drafted by powerful cardinals, particularly
those with links to the Catholic fascist cult Opus Dei, whose resistance to any
change is fierce. Opus Dei, which is highly secretive, was founded in the late
1920s by a Spanish priest, Jose Marie Escriva, later a fervid supporter of
General Franco. The organization claims that its raison dκtre is to promote
holiness in lay people; but from the beginning its true goal has been to
recover something of the politico-religious hegemony Rome enjoyed in Europe
from the time of the first Christian emperor, Constantine, in the fourth
century, to the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth.
Today Opus Dei has enormous wealth and a global
reach. Its sexism and austere orthodoxy on the pelvic issues--birth control and abortion--correspond exactly with the views of the current
Pope, John Paul II, who has been in office 20 years. Bishops with ties to Opus
Dei are now in place all over the world, with a major concentration in Latin
America--where, in the recent past,
the organization supported the junta in Argentina and helped to bring General
Pinochet to power in Chile.
Things might have been different. After the death
of Pope Paul VI in 1978, the surprise choice for his successor, who became John
Paul I, was Cardinal Albert Luciano, a modern man from a socialist,
working-class Italian family, who had no use for the anti-modernism that had
dominated the Church for nearly a century and entrenched the monarchical
papacy. Luciano had made no secret of the fact that he was uneasy with the
arguments in Humanae Vitae condemning artificial contraception. For example, in
a talk he gave to parish priests of the Venito region during a 1965 spiritual
retreat, he stated: I assure all of
you, that bishops would be more than happy to find a doctrine that declared the
use of contraceptives legitimate under certain conditions.
The new Pope lost no time in grasping the birth
control nettle. Soon after his election, he told his Secretary of State that he
planned to see US. Congressman James Scheuer, who was vice-chairman of the U.S.
chapter of the UN Population Fund. Scheuer wanted Vatican sup port for the
plans of the UN Population Fund to stabilize world population at 7.2 billion by
the year 2,050. An audience was scheduled for October 24, 1978.
The meeting never took place. After only 33 days
in office, on September 28, 1978, Pope John Paul I was found dead in bed. The
death has never been adequately explained, though the circumstances suggest
murder by poisoning. Following an examination a couple of weeks before, the
Popes personal physician had told
him that he was in good health: Non
sta bene, ma benone. (Youre
not well, but very well.)
Interestingly, the Popes doctor was
refused permission to examine the body. The reactionary and Cardinal Silvio
Oddi, Opus Deis cardinal protector
and a senior member of the Curia, the Vaticans administrative body, would not allow an autopsy. This murky and
troubling story is explored in David Yallops book In Gods Name, and has been revisited by the
distinguished Canadian journalist Robert Hutchison, in his book Their
Kingdom Come: Inside the Secret World of Opus Dei, published last year in
the United Kingdom.
The upshot of all this was that Vatican
conservatives, whose maneuverings were orchestrated by Opus Dei, were in a
position to engineer the election of a new pope--someone who was not wobbly on birth control and who could be relied
upon to consolidate the power of the papacy. They found their man in the Polish
cardinal, Karol Wojtyla, who took the name John Paul II. From the word go he
aggressively reaffirmed Humanae Vitae, making apocalyptic utterances
associating birth control with the culture of death. This would become the leitmotif
of his papacy. Reportedly, John Paul II is exploiting unease about abortion
to covertly push an
anti-contraception agenda.
If the Churchs active opposition to family planning affected only its own
followers, the situation would be less dire. Unhappily, papal reproductive
politics are played out with devastating effect in vulnerable, developing
countries, where women must incubate babies they cannot feed--much less educate adequately. Multiple
pregnancies also mean that these women have little chance of loosening the
bonds of traditional patriarchal cultures.
In its assault on contraception, the Roman
Catholic Church regularly targets the United Nations. Any UN conference on
population or ecology may expect the Vatican, usually in the person of Joachim
Navarro Valls, its chief spokesman (and an influential member of Opus Dei), to
use its observer status to sabotage programs and funding for family planning.
Moreover, having the Vatican in his corner has helped Senator Jesse Helms in
his successful campaign to block the payment of the dues the US. owes the UN.
When defending this fiscal delinquency, Helms consistently cites the UNs support for population management. The Vaticans take on reproductive issues also played a role
in defeating the McCain-Feingold bill on campaign finance reform. The Right to
Life organization believed that even this lame attempt to limit the corruption
caused by money in politics went too far. Arguing that the bill would curtail
speech, they lobbied against it, their aim being to protect the unlimited
funding of anti-choice candidates pre pared to push the Vatican line.
There is, it seems, no end to Romes reach when the reproductive issues that
underpin papal absolutism are threatened. Even in our community, South Bend,
Indiana, the Vaticans pressure has
been felt. At a recent meeting of the board of the local UN chapter, the person
responsible for raising funds for UNICEF (the United Nations Childrens Fund) lamented that this year the coffers would
be short $4,000--the result of an
action taken by the Ladies of Notre Dame, a body which represents spouses and
women faculty at Notre Dame University. For years the LND have sold Christmas
cards to benefit UNICEF, but 18 months ago the Pope got the erroneous idea that
UNICEF is in the family planning business. As a result, the LND have declined
to sell any more cards.
Given that UNICEF is categorically not involved
with population programs, the basis for the Popes own action--he withdrew
the nominal $2,000 the Vatican used to donate to UNICEF each year--seems to have been an endorsement by UNICEF of a
UN manual addressing the needs of women in emergencies and in refugee camps.
The manual said that such women have
the same rights as others to access, on the basis of free and voluntary choice,
to comprehensive information for reproductive health, including family
planning. . . . This statement
should be placed alongside the Popes
admonition to women who were raped in Bosnia. An editorial in the conservative
Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera quoted him approvingly as calling
for these women to accept the enemy
and make him flesh of their flesh.
He had adamantly opposed the use of the morning-after
pill, even in these desperate
circumstances.
Swiss theologian Hans Kung has written: After the fall of Soviet Communism, the Roman
Catholic Church represents the only dictatorial system in the Western world
today.. . one which confers a monopoly of power and truth to one man. In caving in to this mans dictates, the Ladies of Notre Dame are paying a
high moral price, denying aid to some of the worlds poorest children: $4,000
might fund a great many immunizations. The cruelty of the decision does not
make sense. Do these women really believe that all those Christians from other
denominations, who practice birth control and support sensible family planning
globally, are engaging in wicked practices that put their immortal souls at
risk? The notion is too mad to contemplate.
This war over reproductive issues is one Rome is
not prepared to lose, for womens
control of their own fertility leads to womens empowerment. The clerical mind is terrified of women; the idea of
real equality between the sexes is very threatening to the Catholic male shaman.
So, as the U.S. gears up for elections in the year 2000, the Vatican has begun
to develop what it hopes will be a winning strategy. A story in the National
Catholic Reporter (June 5, 1998) outlines the plan:
With its recent $57 million purchase of 10 AM
stations in major markets across the country, the new
Catholic Radio Network will be Americas largest
system of radio outlets with a Catholic orientation . . . [It] will employ a
24-hour, all-talk format with a basic faith and values approach. . .
While programming will target the 70 million U.S.
Catholics, the audience is also expected to include those on the Protestant and
Orthodox Christian right. The operation will be professional: slick and
well-funded. One major investor, Tom Monaghan, founder of Dominos Pizza, has long promoted the Popes agenda. Opus Deis imprint will be inevitable, given its experience in print and
broadcast journalism around the world, and its control of Vatican media.
Morning and evening, these shows will stay on message. The drumbeat of
propaganda against contraception, reproductive choice, and sensible sex
education will be incessant.
In his epilogue to Their Kingdom Come, Robert
Hutchison wrote that Opus Deis
drive to dominate the Roman Catholic Church is of a determination not seen since the Counter Reformation.. . .
This makes its existence a matter of concern to everyone, whether the holder of
a Catholic baptismal certificate or a simple pedestrian in the secular city. (Hutchison also reports that Opus Dei has been
accused of financing anti-abortion commandos during the 1990s here in the US.)
There are increasingly well-organized dissident
groups within the Roman Catholic Church--two
such are the Call to Action and Catholics for a Free Choice, mentioned at the
beginning of this essay. They are challenging Vatican dogma on several fronts,
demanding the ordination of women, an end to priestly celibacy, and a reversal
of the sanction against artificial contraception. But these folk are no match
for the forces arrayed on the other side. Rome is intimidating and will clobber
the faithful opposition with the formidable sanctions at its disposal,
including excommunication, which a bishop in Nebraska has already invoked
against members of Call to Action in his diocese. In my judgement, it is going
to take a determined political coalition of religious and secular progressives
to thwart this aggressive re-assertion of patriarchal ideology.
Ann Pettifer is a journalist living in the Midwest.
She was the first woman admitted as an undergraduate to the University of Notre
Dame. Currently she publishes an alternative monthly, Common Sense, at the University.
From:
on the issues p. 38 -- fall 1998
