Dogs that Don't Bark, Part 1

John Paul II's TOB demonstrates he is a dog that barks

06/13/2025

One of Sherlock Holmes’ most famous detective cases was called “The Adventure of Silver Blaze.” The Scotland Yard police, typically inept, enlists Holmes’ sleuth skills to solve the mystery of a stolen horse. The key piece of evidence that helped Holmes to catch the culprit was a guard dog that did not bark. From the dog’s silence Holmes astutely deduces that the horse thief was someone known to the dog, hence the canine kept quiet.

Msgr. J. Gaston Hebert, my first pastor, once delivered a very memorable homily – every homily was memorable – using the illustration of a dog that didn’t bark. Believe it or not, his topic that day was contraception and why the Church teaches that its use is immoral. He admitted candidly that as a priest in the 1960’s and 70’s, like many of his confreres, Msgr. Hebert too felt the Church’s teaching was no longer relevant. And so he neglected to preach on it. In effect, he became like a guard dog that did not bark.

He humbly confessed that his silence had been sinful because he had failed to warn his congregation of the moral danger of contraception. He quoted Isaiah 56:10 which describes Israel’s priests as “mute dogs, they cannot bark.” And then Msgr. Hebert, a priest of immense propriety and panache, did the unthinkable: he barked like a dog to conclude his homily: “Woof! Woof!” His sermon was a stroke of Shakespearean genius. And left the congregation contemplating how he broke his sinful silence by a bark.

We might say that the entire Theology of the Body we have surveyed over the course of two years of homilies was but propaedeutic preparation for John Paul II’s final chapter called “He Gave Them the Law of Life as Their Inheritance.” In this concluding chapter, the pope-saint in effect “barks” like a good guard dog, and warns the People of God of the moral and spiritual danger of artificial contraception, the wolf at the door.

John Paul reflects deeply on Pope St. Paul VI’s controversial encyclical called Humanae Vitae (On Human Life) prohibiting contraception. You may remember Paul VI issued his encyclical in the 1960’s at the height of the sexual revolution, the era of so-called free love, made possible by the birth control pill. The pope explains exactly how he intends to “bark” like Msgr. Hebert eventually did:

We want to take this further step, which will bring us to the conclusion of our, by now, long journey, under the guidance of an important pronouncement of the recent magisterium, the encyclical Humanae Vitae, which Pope Paul VI published in July 1968. We will reread this significant document in the light of the conclusions we reached when we examined the original divine plan and Christ’s [three] words referring to it (617).

Even though many clergy in the United States and throughout Western Europe were becoming “dogs that didn’t bark” while contraception was spreading like wildfire – when was the last time you heard a homily on contraception? – Pope Paul VI courageously opened his mouth to proclaim the whole truth about human sexuality and spirituality.

Incidentally, John Paul directly influenced the writing of Humanae Vitae while he was still cardinal archbishop of Krakow. Dr. Janet Smith, who has written and spoken extensively on contraception and Humanae Vitae – and has translated the original Latin text into English – details John Paul’s considerable contribution to this watershed encyclical. She states:

That [John Paul's] theology [of the body] is so compatible with Humanae Vitae may be less surprising when it is recognized that views of John Paul may have had a significant influence on the contents of Humanae Vitae. He was on a special commission that advised Paul VI on the subject of birth regulation…[And] Pope Paul VI was reportedly reading [John Paul’s early work] Love and Responsibility when he wrote Humanae Vitae (Why Humanae Vitae was Right: A Reader, 229).

By promulgating his encyclical, Paul VI stood fast against a growing wave of Christian denominations that accepted contraception one-by-one, ever since the landmark Lambeth Conference of 1930 when the Anglican Church first capitulated. In other words, both pope-saints had learned well the lesson of Isaiah 56:10. They did not want to be “dogs that didn’t bark” when the thief was trying to steal the prize race horse.

Let me give you a mental map of chapter three of Part Two of Pope St. John Paul II tome called Man and Woman He Created Them, to which he gave the working title “the theology of the body” (660). The entire chapter is only 46 pages long and the Holy Father believes every page was extremely pertinent, and therefore did not omit anything like he did with Song of Songs and Tobit. It is subdivided into two sections, the first titled, “The Ethical Problem,” and the second, “Outline of Conjugal Spirituality.”

Even though this chapter comes at the end of his book, we should not cavalierly conclude that it is inconsequential, like the caboose at the end of a train, merely tagging along for fun. Quite the contrary, it is the most critical part – or at least the most practical part – like the rising crescendo at the end of a symphony, or the dramatic denouement to finish an epic story.

Stephen Covey, the leadership guru, taught in his Habit 2 that good leaders always “begin with the end in mind.” He observed humorously: "It is incredibly easy to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to realize that it’s leaning against the wrong wall.”

John Paul reveals how he carefully followed Habit 2, and that contraception is indeed the “right wall” his entire Theology of the Body ladder is leaning against, and in fact looks to topple. He clarifies:

It follows that this final part is not artificially added to the whole, but is organically and homogeneously united with it. In some sense, that part, which in the overall disposition is located at the end, is at the same time found at the beginning of that whole. This is important from the point of view of structure and method (662).

We should also note that this chapter, with merely 46 pages, is evidently the shortest of all the chapters of the Theology of the Body. But don’t let that brevity fool you: Chihuahuas are smallest dogs but they often exhibit the fiercest bark.

Praised be Jesus Christ!