In God's Name by David Yallop Read Free Book Online Page A

(1939–58) had softened the somewhat austere position on birth control he had inherited from his predecessors. During an audience with Italian midwives he gave his approval to the use of the ‘rhythm’ method by all Catholics with serious reasons for wishing to avoid procreation. In view of the notorious unreliability of what became known as ‘Vatican Roulette’ it is not surprising that Pius XII also called for further research into the rhythm method. Nevertheless, Pius had moved the Church away from its previous position that had viewed procreation as the sole purpose of sexual intercourse.
    After Pius XII came not only a new Pope but also the invention of the progesterone pill. Infallibility had been claimed for certain Papal opinions but no one yet claimed Papal clairvoyance. A new situation required a new look at the problem, but the four dissenting priests on the Commission insisted that the new situation was covered by old answers.
    Finally the Commission wrote its report. In essence it advised the Pope that consensus had been reached by an overwhelming majority (64 votes to 4) of theologians, legal experts, historians, sociologists, doctors, obstetricians and married couples, that a change in the Catholic Church’s stand on birth control was both possible and advisable.
    Their report was submitted in mid-1966 to the commission of cardinals and bishops who were overseeing the Pontifical Commission. These churchmen reacted with some perplexity. Obliged to record their own views on the report, 6 of the prelates abstained, 8 voted in favour of recommending the report to the Pope and 6 voted against it.
    Within certain sections of the Roman Curia, that central administrative body of civil servants who control and dominate the Catholic Church, there were widespread reactions. Some applauded the recommendation for change, others saw it as part of the mischievous wickedness that Vatican Council II had generated. In this latter category was Cardinal Ottaviani, Secretary of the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office. The motto on his coat-of-arms read
Semper Idem,
‘Always the Same’.
    By 1966, Alfredo Ottaviani was, next to the Pope, the most powerful person in the entire Roman Catholic Church. An ex-pupil of the Roman Seminary, he was a man who passed his whole career in the Secretariat of State and the Curia without ever being posted out of Rome.
    He had fought a bitter and often successful battle against the liberalizing effects of Vatican Council II. His forehead permanently furrowed, his skull curved back dramatically as if constantly avoiding a direct question, a neck-line hidden by bulging jowls, there was about him an air of sphinx-like immobility. He was a man not merely born old but born out of his time. He exemplified that section of the Curia which has the courage of its prejudices.
    He saw himself as defender of a faith that did not accommodate the here and now. To Ottaviani the hereafter was reached by embracing values that were old in medieval times. He was not about to budge on the issue of birth control; more important, he was determined that Pope Paul VI was not going to budge.
    Ottaviani contacted the four dissenting priests from the Pontifical Commission. Their views had already been fully incorporated within the Commission’s report. He persuaded them to enlarge their dissenting conclusions in a special report. Thus the Jesuit Marcellino Zalba, the Redemptorist Jan Visser, the Franciscan Ermenegildo Lio and the American Jesuit John Ford, created a second document.
    No matter that in doing so they acted in an unethical manner; the object of the exercise was to give Ottaviani a weapon to brandish at the Pope. The four men bear an awesome responsibility for what was to follow. The amount of death, misery and suffering that directly resulted from the final Papal decision can to a large degree be laid directly at their feet. An indication of the thought-processess applied by these four can be