by Robert McClory

Is there possibly a tiny ray of sunshine in Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's commentary on the papal letter, Ad Tuendam Fidem? Ratzinger listed several church teachings, which have been universally taught and are therefore, in his view, infallible, even though not formally defined by a council or pope. Among these truths he listed the evil of prostitution, fornication and euthanasia, and the reservation of the priesthood to men. Why didn't he include in the list the one teaching that, more than any other, has plagued and perplexed the institutional church for 30 years -- the ban on all forms of contraception?

1998 is, in fact, the 30th anniversary of Pope Paul VI's encyclical, Humanae Vitae, whose no-exceptions teaching has been continuously reiterated by the Vatican. But for the same 30 years the teaching has been disputed, disobeyed or ignored by the overwhelming majority of Catholics. The encyclical still "does not call forth any living power from the faithful," as Fr. Yves Congar noted many years ago. It has become a classic case of a teaching that has not been received.

The Catholic Church, of course, believes solidly in tradition -- in the voice of the Spirit working steadily in the full body of Christ from the beginning until the Second Coming. Perhaps 30 years is not a terribly long time in a 2,000-year-old church, but it is surely a long enough time to acknowledge the presence of a very real counter-tradition -- a counter-tradition that has not yielded to repetition or argumentation.

It may be that contraception was not on Ratzinger's list because the subject is too hot and he feared its inclusion would deafen the ears of Catholics to that other hot issue that is on the list, the ordination of women. Or it could be that, after all these years, the Vatican realizes that someday the inevitable has got to happen: an honest reconsideration of the teaching that every form of contraception is intrinsically evil, a revisiting of this doctrine by the whole church, at the highest level and with full input and collaboration from theologians and especially from married persons and others directly affected by the teaching. Such a reconsideration will surely not come during the term of the present pope. But Ratzinger's surprising omission suggests that he and John Paul may be reluctant to create a barrier for such action in the future. The church cannot forever, like a dysfunctional family, refuse to talk about the issue that is tearing it apart.