Contraception is intrinsically evil...
“The encyclical of Pope Paul VI on birth control is true and must be followed by mankind. There shall be no rationalization of sin.”
- The Bayside Prophecies
Our Lady of the Roses, October 2, 1976
Pope John Paul II
On September 17, 1983, Pope John Paul II told a group of priests that “contraception is to be judged objectively so profoundly unlawful as never to be, for any reason, justified. To think or to say the contrary is equal to maintaining that, in human life, situations may arise in which it is lawful not to recognize God as God.”
On June 5, 1987, Pope John Paul II warned clergy and theologians of their grave obligation to faithfully transmit the Church’s teaching on this subject: “A grave responsibility derives from this: those who place themselves in open conflict with the law of God, authentically taught by the Church, guide spouses along a false path. The Church’s teaching on contraception does not belong to the category of matter open to free discussion among theologians. Teaching the contrary amounts to leading the moral consciences of spouses into error.” Pope John Paul II also explained that contraception contradicts and is opposed to true love: “Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality.” (Familiaris Consortio, #32)
Pope John Paul II has explained that when contraception is used, the marital act ceases to be an act of love:
In the conjugal act it is not licitly to separate the unitive aspect from the procreative aspect, because both the one and the other pertain to the intimate truth of the conjugal act. The one is activated together with the other and in a certain sense the one by means of the other. This is what the encyclical teaches (cf. Humanae Vitae, 12). Therefore, in such a case the conjugal act, deprived of its interior truth because it is artificially deprived of its procreative capacity, ceases also to be an act of love. (General Audience of August 22, 1984)
The constant teaching of the Church was again stated on March 1, 1997 when the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family issued a Vade Mecum for Confessors Concerning Some Aspects of the Morality of Conjugal Life. Included in this document is the following statement:
The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful. This teaching is to be held as definitive and irreformable. Contraception is gravely opposed to marital chastity; it is contrary to the good of the transmission of life (the procreative aspect of matrimony) and to the reciprocal self-giving of the spouses (the unitive aspect of matrimony); it harms true love and denies the sovereign role of God in the transmission of life (n. 24).
As Pope John Paul II has stated, “The heart has become a battlefield between love and lust. The more lust dominates the heart, the less the heart experiences the nuptial meaning of the body. It becomes less sensitive to the gift of the person, which expresses that meaning in the mutual relations of the man and woman.” (General audience of July 23, 1980)
Pope Paul VI
The great encyclical referenced by Our Lady of the Roses in Her quote, “The encyclical of Pope Paul VI on birth control is true and must be followed by mankind” is Humanae Vitae, which masterfully explained the evil of contraception. Several especially important quotes from this encyclical include:
God has widely disposed natural laws and rhythms of fecundity which, of themselves, cause a separation in the succession of births. Nonetheless, the Church, calling men back to observance of the natural law, as interpreted by their constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life. (n. 11)
… to make use of the gift of conjugal love while respecting the laws of the generative process means to acknowledge oneself not to be the arbiter of the sources of human life, but rather the minister of the design established by the Creator. In fact, just as man does not have unlimited dominion over his body in general, so also, with particular reason, he has not such dominion over his generative faculties as such, because of their intrinsic ordination toward raising up life, of which God is the principle. ‘Human life is sacred,’ Pope John XXIII recalled, ‘from its very inception it reveals the creating hand of God.’ In conformity with these landmarks in the human and Christian vision of marriage, we must once again declare that the direct interruption of the generative process already begun, and, above all, directly willed and procured abortion, even if for therapeutic reasons, are to be absolutely excluded as licit means of regulating birth. Equally to be excluded, as the teaching authority of the Church has frequently declared, is direct sterilization, whether perpetual or temporary, whether of the man or of the woman. Similarly excluded is every action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible. (#13-14)
Pope Pius XI
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 guild of a grave sin. (Casti Connubii, #56)
[note: Grave sin is understood here to be mortal sin. A single unrepented mortal sin carries with it the punishment of eternal separation from God, hell.]
Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII, in an address in October 29, 1951 declared that:
any attempt on the part of married people to deprive this act of its inherent force and to impede the procreation of new life, either in the performance of the act itself or in the course of the development of its natural consequences, is immoral; and no alleged ‘indication’ or need can convert an intrinsically immoral act into a moral and lawful one. This precept is as valid today as it was yesterday; and it will be the same tomorrow and always because it does not imply a precept of the human law but is the expression of a law which is natural and divine.
Other statements on contraception
Dr. Donald DeMarco writes that “Contraception is part of a philosophy that implies that when it comes to having children, the husband and wife (or the producers) should be the only ones in charge.” He also writes, “Contraception is an attempt to disenfranchise God from the matter of creating new life and putting the responsibility solely in the hands of humans. But God remains the Author of life, and the contraceptive program, by disrespecting God’s Plan, will deprive all its participants of blessings that they cannot afford to be without, and need far more than they realize.” (New Perspectives on Contraception, p. 11) Dr. DeMarco also explains that contraception divides the self, rendering the total gift of self impossible: “A divided self is less than whole. Therefore, he is less happy and is less able to give everything he is. Contraception, in separating baby-making from love-making, is divisive of the self. But it also diminishes what the marriage partners are able to bring to each other. Contraception is neither a boon to the self or to marriage.” (p. 36) Regarding the effects on the married couple, Dr. Marco emphasizes that contraception destroys intimacy: “Contraception allows sexual partners to go through the motions of being intimate without their being truly intimate, that is, unreservedly and unconditionally so.” (p. 41)
Mother Teresa of Calcutta, in her speech before President Clinton at the 1994 National Prayer Breakfast, expressed the close link between the contraceptive mentality and abortion:
In destroying the power of giving life, through contraception, a husband or wife is doing something to self. This turns the attention to self and so destroys the gift of love in him or her. In loving, the husband and wife must turn the attention to each other. Once that living love is destroyed by contraception, abortion follows very easily.
Cardinal Cahal Daly of Ireland wrote:
[The birth control mentality] means the abandonment of self-control over sexual urges; it implicitly authorizes sexual promiscuity. Society makes it unnaturally difficult for people, particularly young people, to be continent; and then offers a remedy, contraceptives, which merely increases the incontinence. Promiscuity is the logic of birth control; but to have promiscuity with impunity there must also be abortion and infanticide, sterilization and euthanasia. The logical contraceptionists must insist if these cannot be generalized by persuasion, they must be imposed by law. It has long been recognized that there is a connection between eroticism and totalitarianism. (Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Newsletter, March 1993, p. 11)
Dietrich von Hildrebrand wrote:
The sinfulness of artificial birth control is rooted in the arrogation of the right to separate the actualized love union in marriage from a possible conception, to sever the wonderful, deeply mysterious connection instituted by God. This mystery is approached in an irreverent attitude. Here we are confronted with the fundamental sin of irreverence toward God, the denial of our creaturehood, the acting as if we were our own lords… It is the same sinfulness that lies in suicide or in euthanasia, in both of which we act as if we were masters of life. (Love, Marriage and the Catholic Conscience, pp. 45-46)
“Permissiveness shall not be accepted by your God. Sin is sin; there is no compromise for sin. Mortal sin is a grievous offense to the Eternal Father. The Commandments shall be followed without permissiveness.”
- The Bayside Prophecies
Jesus, November 21, 1977
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