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Book Review: Apologia Pro Beata Maria Virgine: John Henry Newman’s Defence of the Virgin Mary in Catholic Doctrine and Piety

contraception. Only 20 bishops gave feedback, but most of them voted for artificial methods of contraception (see Gilfredo Marengo in his recently published book La nascita di un’enciclica. Humanae vitae alla luce degli Archivi Vaticani). This may allow the conclusion that Paul VI in the end took a quite solitary decision, even neglecting the synodal principle. Part Two of the book contains a ‘short story of reader response’ to the encyclical letter, by bishops’ conferences throughout the world, by the Council’s pastoral constitution ‘Gaudium et spes’ and by Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis. Still remarkable today is the feedback of both the Austrian and the German bishops’ conference, which, in the ‘Mariatroster Erklaerung’ (Austria) and the ‘Koenigsteiner Erklaerung’ (Germany), appreciated ‘Humanae vitae’, but at the same time saw the need to declare the primacy of one’s conscience when it comes to contraception questions. For the response of ‘Gaudium et spes’, Lintner argues that ‘Humanae vitae’ may have met such a refusal because it contains only a one-sided reception of this pastoral constitution, i.e. the reception of the minority, which hadn’t prevailed at the Second Vatican Council. Regarding the attitudes to ‘Humanae vitae’ by Paul VI’s successors, Lintner sees John Paul II in great agreement with it, as he even exaggerates the council’s change of view from the generative to the personal meaning of marriage (cf. ‘Gaudium et spes’) to ‘total devotion’ of the two partners – an almost unreachable ideal. Benedict XVI, on the other hand, agrees with ‘Humanae vitae’, but seems to miss a more rational access to marriage and contraception questions, including the personal development of maturity, reason and abstinence. But as he emphasises other criteria and is quite reluctant to discuss the moral norms as vehemently as John Paul II, Lintner recognises a ‘careful correction’ (p. 90) by Benedict XVI. When it comes to Pope Francis and ‘Amoris laetitia’, there is also agreement with ‘Humanae vitae’, but a very significant difference is the sound of the text: kind-heartedness, fewer reproaches and interdictions; rather, encouragements. Francis emphasises respect for the dignity of each other in a marriage, advocates treating each other with love and tenderness, and especially makes a point ‘that we [the Catholic Church; AS] have been called to form consciences, not to replace them’ (Amoris Laetitia, 37). The last part of Lintner’s book examines the arguments of ‘Humanae vitae’ against artificial methods of contraception and doesn’t find them necessarily convincing, some of the fears expressed therein even having been proved wrong over the last decades (e.g. that there could be a direct link between artificial methods of contraception and a rise in the number of abortions). Lintner concludes that the positive descriptions of the relationship between men and women in marriage, which are found throughout ‘Humanae vitae’, combined with the more forward and timely statements of ‘Amoris laetitia’, could be a fruitful way into the future.