The Primacy of Peter: Theology and Ideology—I

IIt is now clear enough that the disturbance in the Catholic world caused by the publication of Humanae Vitae was a symptom of much deeper stirrings in the Church than a difference of opinion about contraceptive methods of family limitation. We have to recognize that a profound shift of Catholic consciousness had already begun to take place, and that the publication of Paul VI’s encyclical served to precipitate this new consciousness and to make its protest against the old articulate.The visible structure of the older Catholic consciousness is easily described: within the period between Pius IX and Pius XII, Catholics recognized their distinctive identity, especially in England, in terms of an explicit awareness of the Pope, Mary, eucharistic devotions as well as Mass, Friday abstinence and the unlawfulness of ‘unnatural’ methods of birth control. It is instructive to recall that the Pope who confirmed his predecessor’s withdrawal of the discussion of contraception from Vatican II and who could not accept the recommendations of his theological commission is also the Pope who insisted on giving Mary the title of Mater Ecclesiae in his allocution of 21st November, 1964, at the close of the third period of Vatican II, although the title was after consideration excluded from the chapter on Mary in the constitution Lumen Gentium on the Church; thus Paul VI continued the tradition of Pius IX and Pius XII in associating Pope and Mary in a special relationship to the Church. Paul VI is also the Pope of the encyclical Mysterium Fidei on the Eucharist.