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The 800-member Los Angeles Association of Laymen issued a manifesto declaring: "We simply reject Pope Paul's ban on birth control and ask all mature Catholics to do the same. We will not 'leave the church.' We will not be thrown out. We are Catholics because of our faith and our hope and our love, together in community. And nothing except our own conscious decision can change that."
Pyramid of Wisdom. The likelihood that Humanae Vitae would prove to be a dead letter within months after its publication raised a far more fundamental ecclesiastical question, the role of papal authority in the church. Many theologians contend that there has been an unhealthy overemphasis on the teaching voice of Rome since the definition of papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council in 1870. In effect, the church has been a pyramid, with all wisdom flowing downward from the top. Pope John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council suggested the possibility of a more democratic, decentralized concept of Catholicism. Paul—with his constant emphasis on the need for obedience, his surprisingly old-fashioned and orthodox Creed, and now his rather arbitrary decision on birth control—seems determined that only the Pope should speak for the church.
Jesuit Biblical Scholar John McKenzie of Notre Dame believes that "with this pronouncement on birth control, the papacy is going to lose its leadership, which will take 200 years to recover—if ever." Although the downgrading of papal authority would unquestionably lead to a period of confusion within the church, some progressive Catholics contend that dissolution of the papacy as an absolute monarchy would lead to a new and healthier concept of what authority is. The church of the Bible, they argue, was not an authoritarian state but a community of shared decisions, which were not made by the hierarchy alone. Without denying that the church needs a Pope as the symbol of faith, some theologians would argue that there ought to be several levels of teaching authority. On a question of marital morality like birth control, the conscience of the church should be formed by those who face the question in their daily lives—the married laymen. In any case, no real authority can be exercised without effective dialogue involving all the people of the church.
Submerged in Documents. Although he knew that it would be criticized, Pope Paul was clearly unprepared for the gale of protest aroused by the encyclical. In a mid-week audience at Castel Gandolfo, his summer residence, Paul told an audience of pilgrims something of the personal agony that had accompanied his decision. "Never before," he said, "have we felt the load of our duty. We have studied, read, discussed as much as we could. And we have also prayed a lot. How many times have we had the impression of being almost submerged by this heap of documents? How many times have we realized the inadequacy of our poor person to the formidable obligation of pronouncing ourselves on this matter? How many times have we trembled before the dilemma of an easy condescension to current opinions, or of a decision badly borne by society today, or which would arbitrarily be too heavy for conjugal life?"