July 25: Open Dissent

Welcome to the American Catholic Daily Reader Podcast. Today is July 25th, and our story is Open Dissent. Dissent among Catholics is hardly unprecedented. In every age, some doctrine or discipline fails to garner the universal assent of clergy or laity.

The dissent that followed Pope Paul VI's promulgation of Humanae Vitae, however, was like nothing the Church had seen since perhaps the days of Martin Luther. The encyclical, which explained and reasserted the Church's prohibition of artificial contraception, was published on July 25, 1968.

Immediately, bishops' conferences, priests, theologians, and ordinary Catholics began voicing their disagreement. In the United States, opponents of the encyclical found their voice early, thanks to the Catholic University of America's Father Charles Curran. Within two days of Humanae Vitae's publication, Curran rallied more than 600 theologians and academics to sign a letter of open dissent, asserting that spouses may responsibly decide, according to their conscience, that artificial contraception in some circumstances is permissible and indeed necessary.

Defenders of the encyclical, however, had a champion of their own, the philosopher Germain Grisey. Raised in a large Catholic family, Grisey didn't fully embrace the Church's traditional teaching on contraception until the early 1960s. After that, however, he wrote extensively on the topic, including the book Contraception and the Natural Law. He also spent time in Rome advising one of the members of the papal birth control commission, Father John C. Ford, S.J. In the wake of Humanae Vitae, defending the encyclical became almost a full-time job for Grisey.

He took a leave of absence from his teaching position at Georgetown and joined forces with Archbishop Patrick Cardinal O'Boyle of Washington, who had more than 50 openly dissenting priests on his hands and feared he might soon have a schism as well, to explain and defend the church's teaching.

Although Grise was mostly a lone voice crying out in the wilderness in those early years, his work paved the way for a new generation of priests, theologians, and philosophers who were slowly changing the contraception conversation from one of dissent to one of assent.

Navigating disagreement requires courage, clarity, and perseverance. Today, reflect on a topic where your beliefs differ from those around you. How can you express your views respectfully while remaining open to dialogue and truth? Thank you for listening to the American Catholic Daily Reader podcast. Join us tomorrow, July 26th, for another story of faith and courage in America.