The Bishops and Birth Control

No change, but they take a new look at divorce

The Synod of Bishops, created by Pope Paul VI in 1965, is potentially an important vehicle for sharing Vatican power with bishops whose people live under vastly different conditions all over the globe. Though the synod is only an advisory body and the Pope sets the agenda, bishops have an opportunity to come to the Vatican every few years to present their ideas on church problems. The synod of 1969, a year after Paul's hotly disputed reaffirmation of the ban on artificial birth control, brought a demand from the bishops that they be consulted next time before the Pope dropped any such doctrinal bombshell. After that, Paul rejected urgings from his bishops to call a synod on family issues, probably because he feared opening up birth control to discussion again.

For his first synod, however, Pope John Paul deliberately picked the treacherous topics his predecessor avoided: the whole range of family issues, including contraception, abortion, sexual morality and the thorny question of divorced Catholics involved in second marriages. The bishops talked for a month, and when the synod closed last week it was evident that on birth control, the assembly had buttressed tradition rather than questioned it. The end result was a reaffirmation of Paul's teaching by the 216 delegates, which not only strengthens official policy but also makes it appear less the view of one man in Rome and more that of the worldwide hierarchy.

As the synod began, there was a flurry of excitement. Led by Archbishop John R. Quinn, president of the U.S. hierarchy, a number of prelates from Western Europe, Canada and the U.S. baldly pointed out that large numbers of good Catholics simply do not understand the ban on birth control and are unwilling to obey it. But no one at the synod questioned Paul VI's teaching on birth control. And it soon became clear that many bishops in non-Western parts of the world take a dim view of contraception. Social-action liberal bishops from Brazil and other Third World nations spoke with special vehemence against it. Declared one Spanish language working group at the synod: "Christian marriage must be considered as a vocation to fertility."

Jaime Cardinal Sin of the Philippines protested against "demographic manipulation." Paul Cardinal Zoungrana of Upper Volta led a protest against the World Bank for its policy of refusing financial aid to countries that have no population planning program.

The remaining business dealt with Catholics who practice contraception.

The synod's final "propositions" for papal consideration, codified by West Germany's Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, have been kept secret. But most apparently endorsed tolerance: the birth control doctrine, as one Cardinal put it, "is not a discipline to be imposed in full rigor but should be gradually brought to the conscience of married couples as they mature." All sides agreed that the teaching must somehow be made more convincing.