By Peter Darcy

Among the many hard teachings of Christ that are offensive to the dominant secular culture is the Church’s age-old prohibition of the use of all forms of artificial contraception, which is a clearly defined doctrine of the Church. Many people have formally rejected the Church’s teaching on this issue and still consider themselves good Catholics or Christians—perhaps more than we would like to admit. If you can believe the secular polls and studies, contraception is a stumbling block for a high percentage of members of our own Church.

Yet, the teaching on artificial contraception is Christ’s teaching. The Church only defines it for us and hands it on through the ages under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It is a fundamental element of the moral teaching of the Church, the “words of eternal life” (John 6:68) that come from the lips of our Savior, one of the hard teachings of the Gospel that does not change according to the whims of any age or anyone’s personal preferences.

For the purposes of this article, I will focus on the legitimate duty of our clergy to propagate this counter-cultural message of the Gospel, and I’ll leave a deeper explanation of this complex subject to credible witnesses in the modern age, such as Professor Janet E. Smith. She is the preeminent commentator on contraception and offers a free digital download of her fantastic Contraception: Why Not? talk on her website.

Conspiracy of Silence

What is difficult to understand is the conspiracy of silence from the pulpits of our Church on the issue of contraception. If the faithful have been ignorant of the teaching of Christ on this issue, it is primarily due to the refusal of the Catholic clergy (deacons, priests, bishops) to address it in a consistent and realistic way in their preaching. It bears repeating that clergymen have a moral obligation to teach the full teaching of Christ.

The reasons for this negligence may range from a scandalous rejection of the teaching, to a lack of moral courage, to an inexcusable ignorance of the subject matter. Whatever the reason, the effect is the same: the nullification of the life-giving fullness of truth that the faithful have a right to hear from our pulpits. Clerical contraception, if you will. It is the other priestly scandal that few talk about.

Contraception itself is a repudiation of God’s sovereignty over one’s marriage and a refusal to obey the Lord’s command to “be fruitful and multiply.” The priest, though not married, analogously contracepts the life-giving seed of truth when he refuses to preach the Catholic Faith—all of it. He made a solemn promise to do so on the day of his ordination. Faith comes through hearing, says St. Paul (Rom 10:17), and it is through the priestly ministry that Christ transmits the content of the faith to His bride, the Church, so that she can be spiritually fruitful and multiply the souls who are brought to salvation. The priest as bridegroom, in imitation of Christ, is an apt metaphor here.

The Parenting Analogy

This embarrassed silence from our pulpits is similar to one very difficult duty of parenting; namely, the obligation of parents to educate their children on the delicate matters of human sexuality. It is clearly one of the more difficult tasks of parenting but also one of the most important tasks for the Christian formation of their souls.

Oftentimes parents delegate this duty to pernicious “sex-educators” in schools who distort and undermine the very values of modesty and chastity that parents hope to instill in their children by their example at home. The passive communication of Christian values in the home environment is simply no match for the aggressive programming of decadent values the kids get from the school system and absorb from the secular culture.

In other words, without an explicit effort by parents to communicate and instill Christian values in the hearts of their children, the kids often emerge from their teen years imbued with a full set of hedonistic values, attitudes, and behaviors regarding human sexuality. In the realm of faith, they are Christians. In the realm of morals, they are pagans.

Spiritual Fatherhood

The analogy applies well to the silence of Catholic clerics regarding sexual morality in general and contraception in particular. Priests are spiritual parents—we call them fathers. They have an obligation to communicate the truth of these delicate matters to the faithful, and in this area, many don’t. (There are refreshing exceptions among the clergy, of course.)

Parents who later wonder where their kids “went wrong” in areas of sexual morality often have their own lack of diligence to blame. Priests may also wonder why members of their flocks go astray like sheep (Is 53:6) as their parishioners reject certain teachings of Christ they don’t like and still consider themselves Catholics “in good standing.” Analogously, their own silence from the pulpit bears part of the blame.

It is said that “nature abhors a vacuum,” and that is true of spiritual nature as well. Where actual Christian values are lacking, where a conspiracy of silence reigns in the place of a robust witness, negative spiritual values rush into the vacuum with a vengeance. In the realm of human sexuality, the flock on Sunday reverts to paganism the rest of the week.

Wisdom Unspoken

If the faithful have never been admonished from the pulpit that it is a mortal sin to use contraception or to have oneself sterilized, they adopt the default values of a society that mocks and criticizes them as being “irresponsible” for having more than 1.3 children. Even the secular press isn’t hiding the fact that the fertility rate in America is at crisis levels now, and sometimes they’re shocked at the decline. After seventy years of rampant abortion and contraception, is it really such a mystery?

The Catholic Church’s view of “responsible parenthood” (mentioned 11 times in the encyclical Humanae Vitae) is well elaborated and shockingly different from society’s default definition of the same term, but few Catholics would know the difference due to the abysmal silence about it from the pulpit.

Likewise, when the faithful have never been told of the real physical and spiritual dangers of contraception, they will end up subject to the degrading impacts of the culture of death and wonder why no one ever warned them.

I remember attending a talk by the wonderful chastity educator, Molly Kelly. During the talk she held a folded-up list of birth control side-effects in her hand while explaining the dangers of contraception. At one point, with a dramatic flair, she would shake out the list, which was a thin strip of paper that unfolded itself like a ribbon and cascaded all the way down to the floor as she held on to the top of it. The list was taller than her.

Then she made a point to explain how the paper was printed on both sides in virtually microscopic print because the manufacturers of the Pill really didn’t want you to read it. It was the most effective sermon—in fact, the only sermon—I had ever heard on contraception. And it was by a laywoman in the conference room of a secular hotel.

On the other hand, if the faithful have never been made aware of the magnificent alternatives that the Church offers to the world’s current love affair with sterility, they will never experience the life-giving blessings that come through both nature and fidelity to Christ’s teaching.

Long-Term Consequences

Every form of chemical contraception has negative side-effects, and not surprisingly, so does clerical contraception. These side-effects are both social and spiritual with some drastic long-term consequences. Priests who are silent about the teaching on contraception forget two very important things: first and foremost, priestly vocations usually come from large families.

It doesn’t take much insight to understand the direct correlation between Catholic family size and vocations to the priesthood. Priests’ failure to preach openness to life and generosity in forming families has a mathematical long-term effect on how many men will be standing in the ecclesiastical trenches with them later on.

Contracepting this teaching has the same effect on the Church as does contracepting the marital act: sterility. The persistent sterility of priestly vocations in the West is in some real way related to the deafening clerical silence about contraception from the pulpit. Perhaps priests forget that their vocations are the result of their own parents’ generosity with life. Overworked priests are already reaping the fruits of their silence on contraception and will likely be doing so for a long time to come.

Secondly, priestly silence about contraception has eternal consequences. The price of that silence is the loss of souls. A good read of chapter 34 of Ezekiel should send shockwaves through the soul of any priest who has the courage to read it. In 24 verses, the prophet lays bear Yahweh’s attitude toward shepherds who fail to shepherd. It’s not a comforting analysis for a cleric.

In this matter, contracepting men and women who are not warned of their sin and who therefore do not repent of it, risk the death of their souls, and that is the real scandal. To be warned is to be forearmed, especially about something so crucial.

Perhaps the greater consequence, however, is the danger to the priests themselves who do not do their job: they risk their own spiritual deaths because, as both the Old and New Testaments make clear, they will be held accountable for preaching the Church’s full message “in season and out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2).

What To Do

The first response of the laity to clerical contraception is personal fidelity to our Church’s teaching. We cannot point a finger to accuse another of infidelity if we ourselves are not faithful. Even if the “official” teachers are silent, the best teachers are the witnesses who live the teaching and pass that teaching on to those for whom they are responsible. St. Paul reminds us that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive recompense, according to what he did in the body, for good or for evil” (2 Cor 5:10). Let that be a stark reminder to all of us, particularly in these times of scandal where it’s tempting to focus only on the sliver in someone else’s eye.

Our second and most creative response should be to evangelize our clergy on this issue through dialogue, educational materials, friendship, and exhortations. There is no reason why each of us cannot encourage our priests to preach about this topic. We can send them literature and teaching resources, articles, and witness pieces about this subject.

Here’s an idea: Why not send your priest a list of all the side-effects of the contraceptive pill with the question: “Did you know this, Father? It just confirms the wisdom of our Church on the subject.” Then, “Let me know if you need help with your next sermon on contraception.” Married deacons should be in an even better position to witness to this teaching in a very personal manner. Give them encouragement!

Finally, it goes without saying that we need to pray for the purity and doctrinal fidelity of our priests, who are responsible for preaching the whole truth of the Catholic Faith. That is not an easy task. Let them know that you pray for them and understand the enormity of their burden—as you slip a copy of Janet Smith’s Contraception: Why Not? CD into their hands after Mass.

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Peter Darcy is the author and ghostwriter of 17 books on faith and leadership, including The Seven Leadership Virtues of Joan of Arc (2020) and Flames of Faith: 18 Elements of the Catholic Faith to Light Your Way (2025). Visit his spirituality website Sacred Windows at www.sacredwindows.com and his author’s website at www.peterdarcywriting.com. This article is a revision of his 2019 article for Catholic Stand.