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The encyclical is not an infallible pronouncement,* but as an exercise of what theologians call the "ordinary magisterium" of the church, it does require obedience to its norms. Had the Pope issued it at the beginning of his pontificate, it might well have been received with acquiescence. But too much has happened since then. Decrees of the Second Vatican Council, although not explicity endorsing contraception, strongly defended the principle of responsible parenthood and the right of couples to decide for themselves the size of their families. A clear majority of the church's most articulate moral theologians—sometimes with the approving support of their bishops—have publicly argued that couples can licitly practice birth control for reasons of health or economic hardship. The Pope's own commission on the subject in 1966 voted 70 to 14 in favor of relaxing the church's stand on contraception. More significantly, millions of married Catholics, either on their own initiative or with the blessing of their confessors, have decided that birth control is a matter for their own consciences alone.
Natural Law. Although not explicitly stated in the encyclical, the reasoning behind Humanae Vitae was based on natural law. A concept borrowed from the Stoics, this philosophical theory has been interpreted in traditional Catholic thinking to mean that man can properly define the nature of an object from its apparent purpose; just as the ear is for hearing, the argument runs, the sexual organs are for generating. In the name of natural law, which is really God's law, and in defense of the sanctity of life, the bishops of pagan Rome went on record early in condemning abortion and contraception.
Specific church condemnations of birth control notably increased during the late 19th century, when such technological developments as vulcanized rubber made contraception cheap and easily available to the masses. With the growing acceptance of contraception in the secular world, the papal stance against birth control hardened, culminating in the 1930 encyclical Casti Connubii (On Christian Marriage). Reacting to the acceptance of birth control by the Anglicans' significant Lambeth Conference that year, Pope Pius XI declared, in accordance with the natural-law theory, that since the sexual act had a procreative intent, it was a violation of divine will to interfere with it. Paul VI substantially reaffirmed that view.
Critics of the new encyclical are able to marshal some fairly impressive arguments against its logic. There are Catholic theologians today who reject the whole idea of natural law as e'ther philosophically untenable or inadequate as a way of interpreting God's mysterious ways. Still more insist that natural law must be constantly reinterpreted in light of man's expanding knowledge. Thus, some thinkers contend that the Pope's rejection of birth control because it interferes with procreation is based on a static and incomplete understanding of sexuality as a merely biological function. A complete natural-law theory of intercourse should include its total significance for man within marriage. To most modern couples, it is more important as an expression of love than as a method of procreating children.