Betraying the Truth

I wonder how many Catholics don't realize that almost 39 years ago, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops betrayed the teachings of the Church on artificial contraception by refusing to accept the encyclical of Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, which is widely considered the greatest charter of life and love over any other document in human history.

The document, Tragedy at Winnipeg, tells the story of dissent, and how a well-informed and well-formed conscience was considered by the CCCB to override the traditional teachings of the Church on artificial contraception.

Just because many Catholics may find it either extremely difficult or even impossible to follow all of the teachings of the encyclical, the CCCB does not want them to be considered excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. So they devised a statement to deal with the difficulties that contraception provided to the Catholic faithful.

The problematic text of paragraph 26 of the Winnipeg Statement reads:

"Counsellors may meet others who, accepting the teaching of the Holy Father, find that because of particular circumstances they are involved in what seems to them a clear conflict of duties, e.g., the reconciling of conjugal love and responsible parenthood with the education of children already born or with the health of the
mother. In accord with the accepted principles of moral theology, if these persons have tried sincerely, but without success to pursue a line of conduct in keeping with the given directives, they may be safely assured that, whoever chooses that course which seems right to him does so in good conscience.”

So even though we accept the teachings of the Holy Father, we are told by our bishops that in some circumstances, (with the aid of a well-formed conscience of course) we need not observe these teachings. In short, we are told that we can balance the right of a future child's life with proper education and lifestyle for those children already born.

The Church issued us a divine teaching on natural law with Humanae Vitae. It is deplorable that our bishops distorted divine moral theology, and still have not corrected their errors.

What will it take for them to reconsider their faulty logic and adhere to the teachings of the Church? How many misguided souls have gone down the path to hell through their leadership? How many lives have been lost through abortion and contraception?