Contraception: Fatal to the Faith and to Eternal Life

by Fr. John Hardon

Excerpted from a 1968 article...

We affirm in this article that the deliberate practice of contraception between husband and wife is objectively a mortal sin. Those who persist in its practice are acting contrary to the explicit teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. They may protest that they are Catholic. They may profess to be Catholics. But their conduct belies their profession.

[In 1968]..., Paul VI appealed to the conscience of the world when he warned about “the consequences of practicing artificial birth control.” His warning was prophetic. What have been the consequences of contraception in one once-civilized nation after another?

They have been myriad. But I would give especially seven, which may be listed in sequence.

• Fornication;
• Adultery;
• Sterilization;
• Homosexuality;
• AIDS;
• Breakdown of the family; and
• Murder of the unborn.

At the risk of repeating the obvious, let me briefly show how contraception inevitably leads to these seven tragedies that haunt the modern world.

Fornication
How can we expect unmarried people to practice chastity if married people are allowed to practice mutual masturbation, which is another name for contraception?

This touches at the heart of sane morality. Intercourse is the divinely instituted means for married person to cooperate with God in procreating children. It is also the divinely provided means of fostering mutual love between husband and wife.
But contraception does just the opposite. It deliberately prevents the conception of a child and it fosters, not mutual love, but mutual selfishness.

Is it any wonder that our country is plagued with fornicators who indulge their sex passions, while avoiding the responsibilities of parenthood?

Adultery
How can a husband respect a wife who insists on using contraceptives? And how can a wife respect a husband who refuses to accept the duties of fatherhood?

The soul of Christian marriage is selfless love between the spouses. Contraceptive relations between married people are a lie. They pretend to love one another. But in reality, they are using one another in what might just well be called prostitution.

The history of mankind is clear. Contraception in marriage leads to infidelity in either or in both partners. Naturally! Why limit sex activity to one’s spouse if no commitment to having or raising children is the consequence of intercourse?

Sterilization
We do not ordinarily associate contraception with sterilization. But we should.

It is one thing to use contraception as an occasional malpractice. It is something else when people have themselves sterilized to avoid even fathering or mothering a child.

Yet massive sterilization, in a country like the United States, has become commonplace. Now the discovery of a five-year, synthetic hormone contraceptive gives carte blanche to any female teenager or adult, willing to have it surgically implanted under the skin. One of the largest school systems in America is doing just that—at taxpayer’s expense. The sterilizing hormone is implanted under the skin in young girl’s arms. No parental permission is needed.

This opened the door to an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases, whose ratio is already sky-high in the United States.

Homosexuality
The relationship between contraception and homosexuality is seldom adverted to and, in homosexual circles, openly denied. Yet they are connected by the most basic laws of human society.

Contraception contradicts the most fundamental desire of the human heart: to give oneself in total generosity to another human being. Marital relations are meant by God to satisfy this desire between the married spouses. But if women selfishly withhold this generosity from men, men will—tragically look for such generosity in other men. And women will look for it in other women.

As you read some of the homosexual and lesbian literature, you are moved to tears at seeing how a contraceptive society has begotten a homosexual society. In their desperate search for love, men will turn to other men and women to other women. To say they are being deceived is only to emphasize the pity of a sodomistic culture that is starving for love. Contraception deprives married people of the love that they expect to find in a marriage between two people of opposite and complementary gender.

AIDS Epidemic
With all the published writings and statistics on Acquired Immune Deficiency, seldom a word is given to associate this dreadful scourge with widespread practice of contraception.

In spite of all the protests to the contrary, the AIDS epidemic has its roots in homosexuality. By now, of course, there are victims of AIDS whose condition is the result of other factors than sodomy. But the radical cause remains. And therefore, we should in sheer justice, associate the physical disease with its moral foundations, which is homosexuality abetted by contraception.

Family breakdown
The breakdown of stable family life in formerly Christian countries of the Western world is a matter of record. No one who is even dimly aware of what is going on in countries like our own, has any doubt that the family, as known since the dawn of Christianity, is being legislated out of existence.

I use the word “legislated” to bring out what Pope Paul stated so clearly in Humanae Vitae. In context, he is urging reasons for avoiding contraception. He says:

Consider also the dangerous weapon that would thus be placed in the hands of those public authorities who pay no attention to moral obligations.

Who could blame a government for applying to the solution of the problems of a community those means acknowledged licit for married couples in the solution of a family problem?

So it has been. Once contraception became widespread, it was only logical for civil governments to impose a contraceptive way of life on all their citizens. Thus, everything controlled by the government reflects a contraceptive mentality:

• The majority of employed people, working outside the home, are women.
• The salaries earned by husbands and fathers make it next to impossible for them to provide for the size and kind of family they would honestly desire.
• The feminist ideology deprives men of the dignity and respect they deserve and need in the modern world.
• The number of children of single parent, shall we call them families, has reached gigantic proportions.
• Countless children are no longer reared by their parents, but by paid personnel in so-called day care centers.
• Working mothers and under-paid fathers have become commonplace.
• The very idea of a stable and loving family has become—for millions—a starry ideal.

All of this, and more, can be traced, as surely as smoke proves a fire, to the contraceptive mania that is destroying the foundations of the human family.

Abortion
I have saved abortion as the last of the seven deadly consequences of contraception. This, too, is a law of human behavior. Abortion follows contraception like the law of gravity.

This is obvious. As people come to equate sexual pleasure with the self-gratification, there is no limit to their lustful pride. Contraception has taught them to have their own way. They will stop at nothing to have their way, not even murder of their unborn offspring.

Respect for human life requires selfless love of human beings. As a nation is nurtured on contraceptive self-indulgence, it becomes a nation that kills innocent children—if they are an obstacle to the self-gratification of those who brought them into existence.

It has been correctly said that Humanae Vitae divides the Catholic Church into two periods of history. The Church will survive only among those who believe that contraception is deadly to both Christianity and the promise of a heavenly reward.

Normally thirty years is a short time. But in this case it has been long enough to prove who are still truly Catholics. They are those who believe that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ. “If you love me,” Jesus said, “keep my commandments.” The single most tested commandment of the Savior today is that contraception is fatal to the true faith and to eternal life.

© Copyright 1998 Inter Mirifica

Complete article here.