Useless Meetings
While we wish that the government
and the Catholic Church do not come to blows on the birth-control issue,
we fear that no substantive agreement will be reached in the two meetings
that have been scheduled. There will be no real dialogue. The only kind
of talk that can take place is a double soliloquy: the government's and
the Church's representatives will argue from different premises -- and,
for this reason, there can be no hope of any real agreement.
The bishops cannot be expected
to budge from the official Catholic doctrine that ``each and every marriage
act must remain open to the transmission of life'' and, therefore, any
use of the sexual organs in a manner which artificially impedes the procreative
function is condemned.
The trouble with this position,
writes Prof. Barbara Andolsen of the Rutgers University department of religion,
is that it is based on the male sexual experience.
Writing in Concilium, an
international journal in the sociology of religion published in Scotland
and the Netherlands, Dr. Andolsen explains: ``After puberty, most men are
fertile for the rest of their lives. For most men full sexual release (orgasm)
is accompanied by a release of sperm. Therefore, for many males, genital
activity has a direct biological link to procreative potential.
``In women's bodily experience,
however, procreation and sexual release are not so closely linked. After
puberty, women are fertile for only a portion of their adult lives. Women
release ova according to a biological cycle unrelated to genital activity.
Unlike many animals, human females do not limit their sexual contact to
their fertile period. Many woman remain sexually active for a sigificant
time after menopause. Women have a sexual organ with no direct procreative
function: the clitoris. Women's sexual pleasure has no essential physiological
connection with procreation. If theologians reflected seriously on the
physical experience of women, it is doubtful that they could conclude that
procreation is the end of female sexuality.''
But even if Catholic theologians
do not reflect seriously on the physical experience of women, they should
find it very difficult to justify the illogicality with which the institutional
Church interprets the principle that ``each and every marriage act must
remain open to the transmission of life.'' If the Church were to apply
this principle strictly, it should be preaching that post-menopausal women
and sterile men commit sin when they have sex with their spouses.
If our theologians do little
thinking along these lines, our bishops do even less. They are content
to act as if Humanae vitae were the final word of the Church on on the
norms of sexual life within marriage.
Worse, our church leaders
often ignore the fact that the economic situation forces many married women
to work outside the home. When both husband and wife are working, there
are only a relatively few times in which they can responsibly remain open
to the conception of a child.
Sex is an important bond
in the union of most married couples. Hence, a reliable means of birth
control becomes an important means for preserving a couple's sexual communion
while they conceive only those children whom they can care for responsibly.
Here, we have a major gap between the official teaching of the Church and
personal practice. When Church teaching is contradicted by the personal
experience of the faithful, the Church faces a crisis of moral authority.
This is the crisis that
the birth-control issue poses to Filipino Catholics -- and President Ramos
is kidding himself when he hopes the crisis will be eased by having Vicente
Jayme hold a couple of meetings with the bishops.