Vatican II and Humanae Vitae: Cocreating US Catholic Pro-Life Politics

In 1977, sociologist Andrew Greeley suggested that it was not the Second Vatican Council that
divided Catholics, but the 1968 Humanae Vitae. He notes that trust in the hierarchy, Mass
attendance, and general satisfaction with Catholicism fell fast after 1968. By the early 21st
century, these division are manifest in Catholic ideas about sexual ethics. The legacy of Humane
Vitae has pit pro-life Catholics against pro-choice Catholics and posit two versions of Catholic
sexual ethics—one that casually uses birth control and another that prohibits the pill. Building on
and complicating Greeley’s claim, this paper argues that Humanae Vitae and Vatican II
corroborated in the post-1960a era to create lay-led efforts to enact Church teaching. By
examining the legacy of Vatican II from the wide lens of early-twenty-first century Catholic
sexual ethics, I argue that an empowered laity made contemporary pro-life activism possible. I
begin with an analysis of how Catholics define pro-life to include opposition to birth control,
invitro fertilization, and masturbation. I then turn to two case studies of how the laity have set the
terms of this debate—the Saint Paul VI Institute in Omaha, Nebraska, and Fertility Education &
Medical Management (FEMM) out of New York City. Drawing on ethnographic work with both
organizations, I posit that contemporary Catholic pro-life activism is not a reaction against
Vatican II, but uses the ideas of lay empowerment and lay leadership as a tool of Catholic
politics.