Earlier, in the Spring of this year, a number of rumors began to circulate in the halls of the Vatican that Pope Francis was in the process of appointing – or even might have already formed – a secret commission to examine and potentially study changes to the Church’s position on the issue of contraception, as it was laid down in 1968 by Paul VI in the encyclical Humanae Vitae.
That was the last document signed by the Holy Father, and was his formalization of what the Second Vatican Council had developed on this issue.
Since the initial murmurs of these rumors, there has been no official confirmation of the existence and composition of this so-called secret commission.
In the meantime, the rumors have not only continued but have become quite specific and detailed.
It has been suggested that the commission will be tasked by Pope Francis to “re-interpret” the encyclical Humane Vitae by Paul VI, in light of and within the context of Amoris Laetitia. This re-interpretation is expected to be made public on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Humane Vitae’s promulgation (July 25, 1968).
Rumors have it that the commission itself includes Monsignor Pierangelo Sequeri, Head of the John Paul II Pontifical Institute, Professor Philippe Chenaux, Lecturer in Church History at the Lateran Pontifical University and Monsignor Angel Maffeis, Head of the Paul VI Institute in Brescia. Its President, Monsignor Gilfredo Marengo, is a Lecturer in Theological Anthropology at the John Paul II Institute and member of the Steering Committee of the review CVII-Centro Vaticano II Studi e ricerche.
The commission is reported to have begun the preliminary task of procuring from the Vatican Archives, the documentation related to the preparatory work on Humane Vitae, which took place over a period of three years, during and after the Second Vatican Council. This was the first study group on the matter “of regulating births” and was constituted by John XXIII in March 1963. It grew to 75 members under Paul VI.
In 1966 the “experts” delivered their conclusions to Pope Montini, and suggested opening the doors to artificial contraception.
In April 1967 this document which was supposed to be reserved for the commission – the one from which the Francis’re-visitation of the encyclical will start – appeared contemporarily in France in Le Monde, in the U.K. in The Tablet and in the U.S.A in The National Catholic Reporter.
Immediately, a second report, objecting to the commission’s final report, was called for by Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, then head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith and a powerful church conservative at the time.
As many Catholics of my generation will recall, Paul VI unleashed a great deal of turmoil in the Church with the promulgation of Humanae Vitae.
The commission, called by Pope John XXIII in 1963 and later working on the aegis of Paul VI, eventually had ended its tenure with a report asking that the church’s ban on all forms of artificial birth control be lifted.
After widespread expectations Paul VI would take the commission’s report to heart, he issued the encyclical Humanae Vitae, affirming the church’s official ban on all forms of artificial contraception.
When Humanae Vitae arrived, it met strong opposition from Catholics — priests, bishops, and laity alike — who had already made up their mind that artificial contraception was just fine.
This division over the Church’s sexual teachings that had gained a beachhead in 1967 would open the wounds that would diminish the teaching authority of the Pope and the Church itself for generations to come.
There has still been no official confirmation or denial by the Vatican that a commission has been established by Pope Francis to study and perhaps reinterpret Humanae Vitae in light of the original commission’s findings and in the context of the teachings of Amoris Laetitia.
One thing is certain, however. If the rumors are true and such a reinterpretation of Humane Vitae is promulgated, it will mean little to the millions of Catholics who long ago made up their minds about artificial contraception and to the millions of younger Catholics who have never even heard of Paul VI’s Encyclical.
The simple and sad truth is this: Catholics no longer look to the Vicar of Christ or the Bishops as the source of their moral consciousness. The overwhelming majority of the Christian faithful simply form their conscience on their own, often under the compelling influence of the popular culture -- a recipe of failure and disaster for the Church which will continue to play out for centuries to come.
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