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Maritain supported contraception

Started by Geremia, May 06, 2019, 01:02:48 PM

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Geremia

Casti Connubii's condemnation of contraception is infallible, yet Maritain writes, penultimate ¶ (p. 699) of Letter 977a "A propos du Birth Control" (1948):
QuoteDans l'avenir on aurait des techniques contraceptuelles qui permettraient d'éviter la procréation tout en laissant à l'acte sexuel sa pleine normalité et sa finalité dans exercice.
[In the future we may very well have contraceptive techniques which will make it possible to avoid procreation, all the while leaving to the sexual act its full normality and its finality in the exercise of that act.]
The very definition of contraception is to impede the finality of the act, not to engage in "actus per se aptos ad prolis generationem" (can. 1081 §2)!

Note his Modernist, Nouvelle Théologie-esque Letter 985 (1948):
QuoteMerci d'avoir répondu aux autres notes sure le birth control. Que vous ne les jugiez pas hérétiques c'est énorme pour moi. Je sais bien que Casti Connubii rend un son différent. Mais précisément si j'ai raison (si nous avons raison!) il faut dire que cette question offre un de ces tragiques exemples où l'Église défend une vérité en la bloquant avec des manières de penser que la simple expérience humaine a dépassées (à l'aveuglette). Le jour où l'Église admettrait les techniques éventuelles dont nous parlons, il n'y aurait rien de changé à sa doctrine, mais les âmes qu'on a mobilisées à fond contre toute idée d'une technique quelconque de cette sorte et pour une philosophie de la procréation sans contrôle de la raison n'y comprendront plus rien.
 
{It is enormous for me that you do not judge them to be heretical. I know that Casti connubii has an entirely different ring to it. But precisely, if I am right (or better, if we are right) it must be said that this question offers another of those tragic examples where the church defends a truth by blockading it with ways of thinking that simple human experience has left way behind (à l'aveuglette) [that is, like a blind man feeling his way in the dark]. The day when the church would admit such techniques as we are speaking about, nothing would have been changed in its doctrine, but those souls whom the church has completely and fundamentally mobilized against every idea of any technique whatsoever of this kind and in behalf of a philosophy of procreation without any control of reason will understand nothing about this whole question.}
(English translations from this article.)

Pope St. Pius V (whose feast we celebrated yesterday), defend us from the Modernists' "thinking"!