The Annoying Lesson of Humanae Vitae

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By Brian Gill

MY PARENTS WERE part of a nice, normal, mainstream Protestant church. I accepted what I was taught there and still do to a great extent. But I never stopped learning more about what I believed. That eventually made me realize that what I had seen as Christian faith was a small piece of a much larger reality.

I was a Christian when the 1960s began, which wasn’t unusual for Americans living in the upper Midwest. The exciting, or disturbing, decade ended when I was eighteen. I still thought of myself as Christian in 1970, which may be a bit remarkable.

What passed for Christian radio in my area featured nice music, passionate preachers, and a virulently anti-Catholic attitude. Their version of “fire and brimstone” faith focused on guilt and damnation, with the occasional gleeful exultation over roasting sinners. That’s what my memory tells me, at any rate. I don’t have any recordings or transcripts of what they said—only the memories of an early teen. I was going through the early stages of depression, which may have affected my perceptions. What I have learned from others, though, suggests that my memories aren’t very far from the mark.

Venom-spitting radio Christians, along with all that was happening in America and the world, started me wondering if religion was a psychiatric disorder. But folks like my parents, who were Christian but not crazy, helped me realize that lunatics can be frightfully religious but that religion wasn’t necessarily lunacy.

Christian radio’s unrelenting message of doom and hopelessness helped me learn to love rock and roll—on a different station. (I’ve since learned that much of the upper Midwest wasn’t nearly as anti-Catholic as where I grew up and neither was Christian radio.)

Lurid radio rants against the Catholic Church’s manifold transgressions got me curious: how could an organization so corrupt, so wicked, be allowed to exist in a civilized society? More to the point, why couldn’t I see any evidence of all those evil deeds?

Things and people that should make sense, but don’t, bother me—a lot. Without my being particularly aware of it, my mind started an “in-basket” for facts about the Catholic Church—facts, not assertions. I knew the difference before leaving my teens.

I’m a very emotional man, and I’ve learned that my emotions make very poor counselors. Refusing to trust my feelings helped me survive my first suicidal impulse, in my mid-teens. I realized that what I was feeling, awful as it was, probably wouldn’t outlast me. Being an extremely stubborn person, I thought I could out-endure the pain. As it turns out, I was right. I’ve learned more about why suicide is a bad idea, and how prayer can help—a lot. Knowing that I’ve got spiritual backup is good.

A system of belief that’s mostly an emotional rush wouldn’t appeal to me. As soon as the excitement ebbed, I’d start wondering why I’d been so revved up—and whether I should be concerned about what had gotten past my defenses. Something that I could still believe when I felt like all the color and beauty was drained from the world—that, I’d pay attention to. And take much more seriously.

I’ve had very positive experiences with non-ranting Protestants, and even “felt saved”—for maybe ten or fifteen minutes. Maybe a little longer. Oddly enough, I’ve never experienced that as a Catholic, which, for someone like me is probably just as well.

A huge turning point came just before my wife and I got married. I knew that I’d have to agree that our children, if any, would be raised in the Catholic faith. This meant that, just to learn what I was agreeing to, I had to start a sort of crash course of study. Close to the top of my “worrisome” list was the Church’s stand on artificial contraceptives. I really, really didn’t want the Catholic Church to be right about that.

The key document for the issue was Humanae Vitae. I got the official English translation and studied it. I’m fairly sharp, and my experience with other Christian de-nominations suggested that I’d find gaps in the Vatican’s logic I could drive a truck through. But I failed. I didn’t find a gap in the document’s reasoning. So I went through it again. Second time, same result.

At this point, I felt very frustrated. I could reject the conclusions of Humanae Vitae, but to do so I’d have to reject ideas such as God being real and having created the world. I was not willing to do that, hormonally-addled or not. That experience taught me a respect for the Catholic Church that no other outfit had earned.

Years later, I grudgingly admitted to myself that I had learned who currently held the authority that our Lord gave Peter. That’s in Matthew 16:13–19, after Simon Peter says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

At that point, I could have decided that I would rather walk away from our Lord than become a Catholic. Or I could formally sign up with the Church and keep following Jesus, which seemed like a much more reasonable choice. I hadn’t wanted to become a Catholic. When what I learned forced the decision, I was annoyed as much as anything.

But there were and are aspects of the Church I enjoy. For one thing, the Catholic Church really is “catholic,” universal. We’re not tied to one country, or one culture, or one ethnic group. Catholics are certainly not people who get together because we all like the same things. We all are, or should be, following Jesus and sharing the Good News with anyone who will listen. And that’s another topic.

Brian Gill lives in Minnesota and has four children, a background in history, a checkered work history, and a guardedly hopeful attitude toward human goofiness that gives him a different perspective. He is interested in what exists in the universe, what exists beyond, and what might exist.