“We recognize in certain so-called free nations and in some of their policies and laws an opposition to the Christian’s adherence to the natural moral law,” he noted. He cited in particular the fact that pharmacists have been required to fill prescriptions for abortifacient drugs, and that priests have been charged with ‘hate speech’ for preaching on the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts.
“Not without reason, there is greater and greater fear that the Church will be unable to carry out her educational, health-care and charitable works in certain nations because the civil law requires that such Church works cooperate in acts which are always and everywhere wrong,” he said.
The prelate stressed the relationship between “the living of the truth regarding human sexuality and human life” and “the practice of justice.” “The attack on the innocent and defenseless life of the unborn, for example, has its origin in an erroneous view of human sexuality, which attempts to eliminate, by mechanical or chemical means, the essentially procreative nature of the conjugal act,” he explained.
Invoking Pope Paul VI’s landmark encyclical Humanae Vitae, which reaffirmed the Church’s condemnation of contraception, the cardinal contested claims that the conjugal act can maintain its integrity or remain unitive and loving while the procreative nature of the act is “radically violated” through use of contraceptives.
“In fact, it is not unitive, for one or both of the partners withholds an essential part of the gift of self, which is the essence of the conjugal union,” he explained. “The so-called ‘contraceptive mentality’ is essentially anti-life. Many forms of what is called contraception are, in fact, abortifacient, that is, they destroy a life which has already been conceived, has already begun.”
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