From the bulletin of October 3, 2021
After addressing the sacramentality and indissolubility of marriage, Pope Pius XI’s letter continues with a lament of social conditions that work against the good of marriage in society. He lists a variety of mediums of entertainment (radio, television, plays) and nots that they increasingly extol sin (like adultery and fornication) as good or at least as something less than terrible.
From there, he targets a particular falsehood that we’ve seen play out in the worst way in our society today. There were and increasing number of philosophers and social commentators who were arguing that marriage was a social invention and not something rooted in human nature. The problem with this is that, if marriage is made up by mankind, it can be changed by man. And, since all of society essentially rests on the foundation of the family, that idea extends to throughout all of society. As people more and more believed this idea, it led to experimentation with different “forms” of marriage and with the idea that human society is totally arbitrary. In our time, this has led to same-sex “marriage,” a resurgence in the idea of polyamory (multiple partners together), and a general sense of chaos.
A particular aspect of the confusion around marriage had to do with bearing children. This predates the invention of easy-to-use oral contraception, but the same motivations were at work. This leads Pope Pius XI to speak in pretty solemn terms and proclaim that “any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin.” Once contraception is invented, this question will get picked up by Pope St. Paul VI, who will answer in a similar way – something we’ll study more when we get to him in our series on the popes. In his own time, Pope Pius admonishes priests who hear confessions to be diligent in guiding souls away from these false ideas.
Speaking to moral principles more generally, the pope also points out that “no difficulty can arise that justifies the putting aside of the law of God which forbids” intrinsically evil actions. He expresses his deep sympathy and compassion for parents who struggle in raising their children, for women whose health is greatly compromised, for married people who are mistreated by their spouses, and others who generally do not enjoy marriage and family as it should be. The pope is clear that a person isn’t guilty for the sins of their spouse and seeks to console those who find themselves unwillingly connected to evil and sin through the one their married to. Still, even in difficult and imperfect situations, every soul is bound to strive for holiness and righteousness. This means being faithful even when the other is not and being chaste even when other circumstances make living together dangerous or impossible. It also means that marriage cannot be dissolved even in the case of infidelity and danger. As with Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel today, this remains an unpopular teaching, but being difficult doesn’t make it less true or less important.
It’s also at this point that Pope Pius XI reiterates the standard teaching of the Church that abortion is never morally acceptable, a teaching going back to scripture and to the earliest document of the Church, the Didache, which we actually looked at towards the beginning of this study. I will point out that there is a difference between a procedure that risks an embryo’s life as a side-effect of treatment to save the mother – acceptable in some circumstances – and a procedure the deliberately and intentionally kills the embryo – never acceptable. As always, the pope includes with this teaching and exhortation to political leaders to protect the lives of the innocent.
Next week, we plan to have our annual financial report. After that, we’ll return to the remainder of this letter.