ROME has spoken," runs an ancient proverb of the Roman Catholic Church. "The case is closed." No longer true. Last week Pope Paul VI formally promulgated his encyclical on birth control, which condemns all methods of contraception, except rhythm, as against the will of God. The pronouncement caused perhaps the most serious outburst of dissent the Catholic Church has experienced in centuries. Innumerable Catholics made clear that they would refuse to heed the words of a reigning Pontiff. Theologians defied his authority to insist that the encyclical was not binding on married Catholics who have good reasons to practice birth control—and it was obvious that millions will continue to do so.
Thus, instead of solving a troubling question of personal morality for Catholics, Paul has, in fact, brought into the open a much more profound question: Where and what is authority in the church? Ironically, the Pope, who has worried so much about the spread of dissension within Catholicism, has really created the conditions for further revolt.
After the encyclical was published, most of the enthusiasm for it came from Roman Catholic bishops, who are bound by special ties of loyalty to the Pope. Prompted by an urgent request from Rome for moral support,* the hierarchy of the U.S. issued a collective statement that called on "our priests and people to receive with sincerity what he has taught, to study it carefully, and to form their consciences in its light." At least a few prelates were openly disappointed. Franziskus Cardinal König of Vienna, who had tried to keep the Pope from issuing the encyclical, said that "it does not solve on its own the problem for the individual human being." The hierarchy of the Dutch church issued a commentary pointedly advising Catholics that such factors as mutual love and social circumstances should also be considered in guiding conscience on the morality of birth control.
Ecumenical Disaster. Protestant and secular opinion on the encyclical was almost wholly disapproving. In Geneva, Secretary Eugene Carson Blake of the World Council of Churches declared: "It is disappointing that the initiative taken in 1963 to re-examine the traditional Roman Catholic position on family planning seems to have ended up approximately where it began." At the worldwide Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops, the Rt. Rev. I. R. Moorman of Ripon, a Church of England observer at Vatican II, called the encyclical "ecumenically, a disaster for Christianity."