Question:
Answer:
There is no substantive evidence that Archbishop Fulton Sheen ever took a permissive stand on contraception. To the contrary, he defended the Church’s teaching both before and after Pope St. Paul VI issued in July 1968 Humanae Vitae, his encyclical which reaffirmed the Church’s definitive doctrine on this moral issue. If Archbishop Sheen had ever taken a dissenting view on Humanae Vitae, he would have been the poster boy for those—including, sadly, many theologians—who publicly undermined the Church’s teaching after Paul VI promulgated his encyclical. He was not.
Perhaps your friend is referring to an excerpt form Thomas C. Reeves’s book The Life and Times of Fulton J. Sheen, where Sheen was accused of “waffling” on Humanae Vitae during a 1969 David Frost television interview. Sheen defended the Church’s teaching, yet noted some fall short in keeping it and should seek God’s mercy.
Further proof of Sheen’s fidelity to Church teaching on contraception is shown in excerpts from two of his books:
What most human love forgets is that love implies responsibility; one may not fool with the levers of the heart in the vein hope of escaping duties, fidelity, and sacrifice for the beloved. So-called birth control, which assists in neither birth nor control, is based on the philosophy that love is without obligations (Sheen, The World’s First Love, Ignatius Press, 2018, p. 122).
Planned unparenthood is the deliberate and willful decision on the part of a husband and wife to exclude from God the opportunity to create another to his image and likeness. It is the human will freely frustrating divine will, as certain agricultural policies deliberately control the productivity of the earth for the sake of a higher economic price. The non serviam of Lucifer has had its catastrophic effect throughout creation, and particularly in those who say: “I refuse to accept from God that which is his holy will, the increase and multiplication of life.” The refusing to be a co-operator with God is to spoil and maim oneself, for of the unused talents, our Lord said: “Take the talent away” (Sheen, Three to Get Married, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1951, p. 148).