New birth control commission papers reveal Vatican's hand

What is most significant in Grisez's recent notes on Ford, perhaps an unattended admission, is not proof of any real manipulation by the chairperson, de Riedmatten, but rather clear evidence of the secret machinations Ottaviani and Paul VI employed in an effort to undercut a decision, carefully arrived at over four years by the papally appointed commission.

By Gerald Slevin • National Catholic Reporter

Germain Grisez, a retired moral philosophy professor who worked as an aide to a member of the papal birth control commission in the 1960s, appears to be trying to revise Vatican history with the revelation of new documents dealing with the workings of the commission.

However, the documents, apparently without intention, reveal how a powerful Vatican official, working closely with Pope Paul VI, privately maintained a close control of the process and results of the commission’s work.

The commission, begun by Pope John XXIII in 1962 and later working on the aegis of Paul VI, eventually ended its tenure with a report asking that the church’s ban on all forms of artificial birth control be lifted.

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.

The commission’s final report was leaked to and published in the National Catholic Reporter and appeared in other publications in 1966. Two years later, 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.

Grisez’ documents, published in an online essay by Jesuit Fr. John Ford, a member of the papal birth control commission, attempts to make the case that the head of the commission, Dominican Fr. Henri de Riedmatten of the Vatican's office of Secretariat of State, placed undue pressure on the members of the commission to approve birth control.

In the documents, Grisez, who was brought to Rome by Ford as an assistant, appears to be endeavoring to win the argument that he and Ford -- who was added to the commission by Paul VI -- lost almost 50 years ago.

Ford and Grisez both arrived late to the commission's deliberations as part, it appears, of Cardinal Ottaviani’s late effort to salvage the church’s traditional teaching on birth control, cast in the encyclical, Casti Connubii.

Paul VI and Ottaviani had already in 1965 tried unsuccessfully to reaffirm Casti Connubi, explicitly but quietly at Vatican Council II by proposing a last minute amendment to an advanced draft of one of the final council documents. The amendment was, in effect, rejected by council representatives.

The commission members had to have been well aware by 1965 what both Paul VI and Ottaviani wanted as a decision, but the original commission members held their ground. Over several years the original members of the commission had considered and weighed carefully the relevant theological, sociological and psychological evidence.

Based on this, they offered their decision and report to Paul VI as he requested and emphatically recommended to him that he change the Vatican's teachings to permit birth control.

What is most significant in Grisez's recent notes on Ford, perhaps an unattended admission, is not proof of any real manipulation by the chairperson, de Riedmatten, but rather clear evidence of the secret machinations Ottaviani and Paul VI employed in an effort to undercut a decision, carefully arrived at over four years by the papally appointed commission.

Grisez' biographical note includes Ford's own words stating that Paul VI privately told Ford as early as 1966 (two years before the issuance of the encyclical) in very clear terms that Paul VI was not going to change Casti Connubii, published in 1930, to permit birth control.

Grisez also describes in detail how Ottaviani, most likely with Paul VI’s blessing, met with Ford and Grisez within just a half hour of de Riedmatten's hand delivering to the pope the commission's final report favoring birth control.

Read the full article here