J.M.J.
Blessed Paul VI:
Champion of Human Life,
Lover of the Church, Model for Our World
It is not by happenstance that Pope Paul VI
(1963-1978), whom Pope Francis beatified on World Mission Sunday, October 19, 2014 during
the closing Mass of the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops dedicated to the theme
of the family, is recalled for many important things.
Although some inside and outside the Church gave the
impression that they long forgot about Pope Paul, whose baptismal name was
Giovanni Battista Montini, after the October 16, 1978 election of his
Successor, Saint John Paul II (1978-2005), Pope Paul VI lived a saintly life
and is rightly remembered for his tireless work in the vineyard of the Lord. (Saint
John Paul II spoke of his Predecessor with great affection and esteem.)
The Beatification of Pope Paul is cause for immense gratitude
to God for this His humble servant. And it provides for us a useful springboard
for further reflection about this prayerful and learned Bishop of Rome.
Champion of Human Life
Early in his Pontificate, Pope Paul VI recognized the
increasing attacks against the Church’s long-held doctrines regarding the
sanctity of human life and marriage. He knew that numerous voices preferred to
jettison what the Church had always professed about the inviolability of human
life, the nature of the marital act and the permanency of marriage.
Pope Paul VI ensured that Holy Mother the Church would
continue to proclaim the Truth, notwithstanding the cost. One of the most
glorious moments in his Papacy was the promulgation of his Encyclical Humanae Vitae, dated 25 July 1968, which
reiterated the ancient teaching that every instance of the marital embrace must
be open to the transmission of human life.
The resulting firestorm was intense. The Roman Pontiff
was vilified by various quarters. He was accused of being anachronistic,
ignorant and even hateful. But the Holy Father courageously persevered. He did
not relent in trumpeting the authoritative and perduring teaching of the
Church.
A careful reading of Humanae Vitae is more urgently needed than ever. Here are only a
few snippets.
From Article 4, which emphasizes the Church’s
jurisdiction in interpreting the Natural Law:
No member of the faithful could possibly
deny that the Church is competent in her Magisterium to interpret the natural
moral law. It is in fact indisputable, as Our predecessors have many times
declared, that Jesus Christ, when He communicated His divine power to Peter and
the other Apostles and sent them to teach all nations His commandments,
constituted them as the authentic guardians and interpreters of the whole moral
law, not only, that is, of the law of the Gospel but also of the Natural Law.
For the Natural Law, too, declares the will of God, and its faithful observance
is necessary for men’s eternal salvation.
In carrying out this mandate, the Church
has always issued appropriate documents on the nature of marriage, the correct
use of conjugal rights, and the duties of spouses. These documents have been
more copious in recent times.
Article
8 stresses the nature of marriage as the union of husband and wife that tends
towards procreation:
Married love particularly reveals its true nature and nobility
when we realize that it takes its origin from God, Who “is love,” the Father
“from Whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.”
Marriage, then, is far from being the effect of chance or the
result of the blind evolution of natural forces. It is in reality the wise and
provident institution of God the Creator, Whose purpose was to effect in man
His loving design. As a consequence, husband and wife, through that mutual gift
of themselves, which is specific and exclusive to them alone, develop that
union of two persons in which they perfect one another, cooperating with God in
the generation and rearing of new lives.
The marriage of those who have been baptized is, in addition,
invested with the dignity of a sacramental sign of grace, for it represents the
union of Christ and His Church.
Article
11 states the crux of the Church’s longstanding doctrine, which is based in the
Natural Law, that “each and every marital act” must be open to the transmission
of human life:
The sexual activity, in which husband and
wife are intimately and chastely united with one another, through which human
life is transmitted, is, as the recent Council recalled, “noble and worthy.” It
does not, moreover, cease to be legitimate even when, for reasons independent
of their will, it is foreseen to be infertile. For its natural adaptation to
the expression and strengthening of the union of husband and wife is not
thereby suppressed. The fact is, as experience shows, that new life is not the
result of each and every act of sexual intercourse. God has wisely ordered laws
of nature and the incidence of fertility in such a way that successive births
are already naturally spaced through the inherent operation of these laws. The
Church, nevertheless, in urging men to the observance of the precepts of the
Natural Law, which it interprets by its constant doctrine, teaches that each
and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to
the procreation of human life.
Article
14 also treats of the tragedy of “the direct interruption of the generative
process already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic
reasons . . . direct sterilization . . . any action which either before, at the
moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent
procreation”:
Therefore We base Our words on the first
principles of a human and Christian doctrine of marriage when We are obliged
once more to declare that the direct interruption of the generative process
already begun and, above all, all direct abortion, even for therapeutic
reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as lawful means of regulating the number
of children. Equally to be condemned, as the Magisterium of the Church has
affirmed on many occasions, is direct sterilization, whether of the man or of
the woman, whether permanent or temporary.
Similarly excluded is any action which
either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically
intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means.
Neither is it valid to argue, as a
justification for sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive, that
a lesser evil is to be preferred to a greater one, or that such intercourse
would merge with procreative acts of past and future to form a single entity,
and so be qualified by exactly the same moral goodness as these. Though it is true
that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a
greater evil or in order to promote a greater good, it is never lawful, even
for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it—in other words, to
intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order,
and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention
is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of
society in general. Consequently, it is a serious error to think that a whole
married life of otherwise normal relations can justify sexual intercourse which
is deliberately contraceptive and so intrinsically wrong.
Article
17 warns of the fallout for individuals and society as a whole from the use of
contraception:
Responsible men can become more deeply
convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if
they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth
control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open
wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards.
Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to
understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to
temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to
make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for
alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods
may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and
emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the
satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom
he should surround with care and affection.
Finally, careful consideration should be
given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public
authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a
government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire
country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married
people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent
public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they
consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even
impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when
people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the
inherent difficulties of the Divine Law and are determined to avoid them, they
may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the
most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife.
Lover of the Church
Pope Paul VI lovingly laboured for the benefit of
Christ’s Bride, the Church. He continued the arduous efforts of his immediate
Predecessor, Saint John XXIII (1958-1963) regarding the Second Vatican
Ecumenical Council (1962-1965) and saw to its initial implementation.
He reached out to the Orthodox Church and to
Protestants. He was the first Pope to leave Italy since 1809 and the first Pope
to travel to the Western Hemisphere. His pastoral visits took him, among other
places, to the Holy Land, India, the United States of America, Portugal,
Turkey, Columbia, Uganda, Iran, Bangladesh, Philippines, Australia, Indonesia
and Hong Kong.
His 30 June 1968 Apostolic Letter in the form of motu proprio, Credo of the People of God,
summarized what the Church, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, proclaims
as true and to be believed.
He also hailed priestly celibacy and signalled that
the Church would continue this venerable practice.
Pope Paul VI appreciated the centrality of the Most
Holy Eucharist in the life of the Church. His Encyclical, Mysterium Fidei of 3 September 1965, affirmed the Real Presence of
Jesus Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament and responded to some contemporary critiques
of the Church’s doctrine.
In article 45 of Mysterium
Fidei, the Supreme Pontiff referred to the Council of Trent.
He underscores, in article 46, the term and concept of transubstantiation.
To avoid
any misunderstanding of this type of presence, which goes beyond the laws of
nature and constitutes the greatest miracle of its kind, (50) we have to listen
with docility to the voice of the teaching and praying Church. Her voice, which
constantly echoes the voice of Christ, assures us that the way in which Christ
becomes present in this Sacrament is through the conversion of the whole
substance of the bread into His body and of the whole substance of the wine
into His blood, a unique and truly wonderful conversion that the Catholic
Church fittingly and properly calls transubstantiation. As a result of
transubstantiation, the species of bread and wine undoubtedly take on a new
signification and a new finality, for they are no longer ordinary bread and
wine but instead a sign of something sacred and a sign of spiritual food; but
they take on this new signification, this new finality, precisely because they
contain a new “reality” which we can rightly call ontological. For what now
lies beneath the aforementioned species is not what was there before, but
something completely different; and not just in the estimation of Church belief
but in reality, since once the substance or nature of the bread and wine has
been changed into the body and blood of Christ, nothing remains of the bread
and the wine except for the species—beneath which Christ is present whole and
entire in His physical “reality,” corporeally present, although not in the
manner in which bodies are in a place.
On his deathbed on 6 August 1978, Pope Paul VI asked
his closest collaborators to pray not for himself but for the Church.
Model for Our World
The virtues practiced by this saintly Pope were both
numerous and inspiring. His good example continues to resound over thirty-five
years after his death. Here is only a partial view of the pattern of holiness
that he has bequeathed to us.
Prayer.
Pope Paul VI began and ended his days with genuine converse with the Living
God. He did not fail to set aside time for prayer and reception of the
Sacraments.
Love for Our
Lady. The Roman Pontiff affectionately looked upon Mary,
seeking to imitate her fidelity and humility. Pope Paul VI gave to the Church
his noteworthy meditation on Our Lady entitled, Marialis Cultus, which is his Apostolic Exhortation of 2 February
1974. He also made pilgrimage to Fatima in 1967 to see where the Mother of God
had appeared in 1917.
Forgiveness.
Aware of various hurts that he suffered throughout his life, Pope Paul forgave
those who wronged him and those whom he loved. His dear friend, Aldo Moro, who
was the leader of the Christian Democratic Party in Italy, was kidnapped and
brutally murdered by members of the terroristic Red Brigades in 1978. Although Pope
Paul minced no words in decrying their godless violence, he, nevertheless,
pardoned them.
Concern for
the Suffering. He respected the poor and the downtrodden.
Never did he consider himself to be superior to them. He knew his own poverty
and suffering. He encouraged the Universal Church and the world to take care of
the poor and the suffering.
Perseverance.
He relied on the help of God. His confidence in the Lord was strong. No matter
what load he had to carry, he continued along the Way of the Cross, sure that
the empty tomb was not far off.
Blessed Paul VI was a man after the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
May we meet him one day in Heaven.
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