THE PROPONENTS ON THE CONTROVERSIAL RH Bill 5043 are actually saying that majority of the Catholics in the Philippines do support the bill. But they have not shown any exact figures yet. I think the crucial issue is not about statistics but it is about awareness and education. Surveys are perceptions because they simply show responses to a question that has been formulated to further a cause.
Last April and May of 2008, the seminarians of the Archdiocese of Caceres went to two remote parishes for their summer mission work and immersion. To take profit of their house-to-house visitation of all the families in the two parishes with a combined population of 20,000 parishioners, I have given them the task of conducting a survey whether they know the official Church’s teaching on family planning, responsible parenthood and artificial contraception, it was not surprising to know that 95% of all the respondents did not know anything about the Church’s teaching. I believe that this initial survey is symptomatic of a wider need to educate Catholics about the teaching of the Church on issues that affect family life.
“The Church has always considered that the systematic control of births, using directly or indirectly coercive means to limit population size, does not contribute to authentic human development. Moreover, anticipating certain contemporary criticisms of population control theories and practices, the Popes have regarded what is sometimes called “population crisis” only with great prudence. However, it should be noted that the Church’s teaching has closely followed the different population trends, paying equal attention to the population growth observed in some countries and to population decline observed in other places. The popes have vigorously striven to promote justice, peace and development by attacking the problems of poverty and hunger at their source” (PCF, 17-18).
It must be reiterated that the Catholic Church teaches family planning, responsible parenthood and the natural means for regulating birth. However, abortion, artificial contraception, and sterilization are ethically unacceptable and sinful because by their intrinsic nature they promote a culture of death, a contraceptive mentality and they prevent the fulfillment of the co-essential and complimentary goods of marriage—union and procreation.
On Population Trends. Pope John XXIII in his encyclical letter Mater et Magistra stated vis-à-vis the problems of food and demographic trends that “whatever be the situation, we clearly affirm that these problems should be posed and resolved in such a way that man does not have recourse to methods and means contrary to his dignity, which are proposed by those persons who think of man and his life solely in material terms” (AAS: MM, 53, 1961). The Second Vatican Council in Gaudium et Spes recalls the limits of the intervention of “public authority” and “exhorts all men to beware of solutions, whether uttered in public or in private or imposed at any time, which transgress the natural law” (GS, 5,8,47,51). Paul VI reminded the United Nations General Assembly with regard to population ideology with these powerful statement: “You must strive to multiply bread so that it suffices for the tables of mankind, and not rather favor an artificial control of birth, which would be irrational, in order to diminish the number of guests at the banquet of life” (Address to UN General Assembly, 4 October 1965, 6).
On Family Planning and Responsible Parenthood. Paul VI in Populorum Progressio says that “it is for parents to take a thorough look at the matter and decide upon the number of their children. This is an obligation they take upon themselves, before their children are born, and before the community to which they belong—following the dictates of their own consciences informed by God’s law authentically interpreted, and bolstered by their trust in him” (PP, 1967, 37).
In the encyclical Humanae Vitae, Paul VI explains responsible parenthood (better translated according to recent discussion on moral theology as “conscious parenthood”—a better translation of the Latin “conscia paternitas”) in the context of the conjugal love in husband and wife. Moreover, responsible parenthood means the knowledge and respect of biological processes and self-mastery and self-control. Responsible parenthood is exercised either by the deliberate and generous decision to raise a numerous family or by the decision, made for grave motives and with due respect to moral law, to avoid for the time being, or even for an indeterminate period, a new birth. Responsible fatherhood and motherhood include not only the couple’s prudent decisions but also the refusal of artificial methods of birth control. Above all, responsible parenthood implies a more profound relationship with God, of which the right conscience is the faithful interpreter.
The opinion of lawmakers that the Church will be isolated by not supporting RH Bill 5043 remains to be validated. But I believe that a minority opinion is not always at the losing end.
Humanae Vitae remains a case-in-point.