Genders and Sexualities in History Series Editors John Arnold King’s College University of Cambridge Cambridge, UK Sean Brady Birkbeck College University of London London, UK Joanna Bourke Birkbeck College University of London London, UK Palgrave Macmillan’s series, Genders and Sexualities in History, accom- modates and fosters new approaches to historical research in the felds of genders and sexualities. The series promotes world-class scholarship, which concentrates upon the interconnected themes of genders, sexuali- ties, religions/religiosity, civil society, politics and war. Historical studies of gender and sexuality have, until recently, been more or less disconnected felds. In recent years, historical analyses of genders and sexualities have synthesised, creating new departures in his- toriography. The additional connectedness of genders and sexualities with questions of religion, religiosity, development of civil societies, poli- tics and the contexts of war and confict is refective of the movements in scholarship away from narrow history of science and scientifc thought, and history of legal processes approaches, that have dominated these paradigms until recently. The series brings together scholarship from Contemporary, Modern, Early Modern, Medieval, Classical and Non- Western History. The series provides a diachronic forum for scholarship that incorporates new approaches to genders and sexualities in history. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15000 Alana Harris Editor The Schism of ’68 Catholicism, Contraception and Humanae Vitae in Europe, 1945–1975 Editor Alana Harris King’s College London London, UK Genders and Sexualities in History ISBN 978-3-319-70810-2 ISBN 978-3-319-70811-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70811-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017961118 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifcally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microflms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifc statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affliations. Cover credit: Cover image used with kind permission of Paddy Summerfeld from The Oxford Pictures 1968–1978 (Dewi Lewis Publishing, 2016) Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer International Publishing AG part of Springer Nature The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland For my parents, who married before the encyclical and lived and loved in its aftermath. SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE The Schism of ’68: Catholics, Contraception and ‘Humanae Vitae’ in Europe, 1945–1975 is a genuinely groundbreaking collection, where international and interdisciplinary new scholarship explores the relation- ship between Roman Catholicism and global developments in sexual- ity and women’s reproductive rights in the ‘radical 1960s’. The authors examine the ways in which ordinary Roman Catholic men and women, as well as the Vatican and the news media across Europe and the world, responded to the ‘sex problem’ presented by the development of the anovulant pill in the late 1950s and its rejection as an acceptable form of birth regulation through Pope Paul VI’s infamous encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968. The collection brings together historians of gender, sexu- ality and modern Catholicism to discuss the differing reactions to and reception of the Humanae Vitae encyclical by Catholic laity and clergy, episcopacies, medical professionals and media outlets across Europe. In demonstrating how these debates, and the Roman Catholic Church’s important role within them, interacted with the social and sexual coun- tercultures of the 1960s, the collection makes an essential contribution to a growing historiography of radical social change in the 1960s. It also provides new perspectives and approaches that enrich the historiog- raphy of sexuality, of gender, and of religion. In common with all vol- umes in the ‘Genders and Sexualities in History’ series, The Schism of ’68: vii viii SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE Catholics, Contraception and ‘Humanae Vitae’ in Europe, 1945–1975 presents a multifaceted and meticulously researched scholarly collection, and is a sophisticated contribution to our understanding of the past. John Arnold Joanna Bourke Sean Brady ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This volume was conceived through a Facetime conversation with Wannes Dupont (then residing in Antwerp) in late 2015. A mutual aca- demic friend had suggested, in view of our shared research interests in religion and sexuality, that we would have a lot to talk about. We cer- tainly did, and the result was a workshop in September 2016 held at King’s College London and attended by many of the contributors to this volume. Through Wannes’s long-standing role as co-chair of the Sexuality Network of the European Social Science History Conference, and co-organiser with me of this London workshop, I wish to acknowl- edge him formally as the driving force behind the identifcation of those with the necessary interest and expertise to participate in this anthology. I am incredibly grateful for his intellectual insights and support amidst the life transitions and professional changes he has negotiated during the past two years, which have seen him relocate between three academic institutions and multiple countries. In facilitating the comparative conversations that form the basis of this volume, I thank the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at King’s College London who provided fnancial support for the workshop and travel expenses to bring the participants to the UK. Alongside those writing in this collection, there were a number of other presenters whose contribu- tion I wish to recognize, including Jim Bjork, David Geiringer, Carmen Mangion, Francisco Molina, Caroline Sägesser, Margaret Scull, Andrea Thomson, and Cécile Vanderpelen. For research support undergirding the introduction and my own chapter, thanks are given to Hannah Elias ix x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS and Maya Evans. Dagmar Herzog was a fabulous supporter and advocate in the complicated closing stages of this volume. Finally, my love and thanks to the two men in my life who have lived through the twists and turns of the manuscript compilation process and are always encourag- ing, understanding and productively distracting—Timothy Folkard and Sebastian Harris-Folkard. Thanks darls. CONTENTS 1 Introduction: The Summer of ’68—Beyond the Secularization Thesis 1 Alana Harris Part I To the Barricades 2 Humanae Vitae: Catholic Attitudes to Birth Control in the Netherlands and Transnational Church Politics, 1945–1975 23 Chris Dols and Maarten van den Bos 3 Of Human Love: Catholics Campaigning for Sexual Aggiornamento in Postwar Belgium 49 Wannes Dupont 4 ‘A Galileo-Crisis Not a Luther Crisis’? English Catholics’ Attitudes to Contraception 73 Alana Harris xi xii CONTENTS Part II Episcopal Controversies 5 Religion and Contraception in Comparative Perspective—Switzerland, 1950–1970 99 Caroline Rusterholz 6 Attempted Disobedience: Humanae Vitae in West Germany and Austria 121 Katharina Ebner and Maria Mesner Part III Christian Science and Catholic Conservatism 7 The Politics of Catholic Medicine: ‘The Pill’ and Humanae Vitae in Portugal 161 Tiago Pires Marques 8 Humanae Vitae, Birth Control and the Forgotten History of the Catholic Church in Poland 187 Agnieszka Kościańska Part IV Covering the Controversy 9 A Kind of Reformation in Miniature: The Paradoxical Impact of Humanae Vitae in Italy 211 Francesca Vassalle and Massimo Faggioli 10 Love in the Time of El Generalísimo: Debates About the Pill in Spain Before and After Humanae Vitae 229 Agata Ignaciuk 11 Reactions to the Papal Encyclical Humanae Vitae: The French Conundrum 251 Martine Sevegrand COntents xiii Part V Church, State and Contraception 12 The Best News Ireland Ever Got? Humanae Vitae’s Reception on the Pope’s Green Island 275 Peter Murray 13 Catholicism Behind the Iron Curtain: Czechoslovak and Hungarian Responses to Humanae Vitae 303 Mary Heimann and Gábor Szegedi 14 Afterword—Looking for Love 349 Dagmar Herzog Index 365 EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTORS About the Editor Alana Harris is a Lecturer in Modern British History at King’s College London. She is the author of Faith in the Family: A Lived Religious History of English Catholicism, 1945–1982 (2013) and has published numerous articles on the intersections of gender, sexuality, devotional cultures and material religion. She is currently researching the changing