"An unacceptable disarray of conscience". The Social and Emotional Consequences of Humanae Vitae: rituals of protest, sacramental experiences and practices of the body

1968年7月25日，禁止天主教徒实施人工节育的通谕《人类生命》（Humanae vitae）在天主教世界内外引发了巨大反响。因此，它必须被视为现代教会历史上的一件大事。教皇保罗六世将婚姻性行为的合法性与怀孕的可能性联系起来的决定确实引起了一些兴奋，但主要是对联邦共和国的神职人员和俗人深感失望。该项目将利用情感历史和仪式理论的方法，调查20世纪70年代人们对《人的生命》的反应。“人的生命”是否帮助了西德天主教内部不同的“情感社区”的兴起，这些社区塑造了不同的群体和地位，直到今天？首先，该项目涉及抗议仪式，这些仪式通过给主教的许多信件和埃森Katholikentag的示威活动来表达。尤其令人感兴趣的似乎是天主教对许可的节育方法的抗议与1968年更普遍的政治抗议之间的关系。其次，许多反应提到忏悔和圣餐礼之间的联系和做法。最近的研究似乎有所不同，然而，自20世纪60年代初以来，对忏悔圣礼的不接受开始蔓延。牧师们对他们的信徒施加的“情感制度”（威廉·雷迪）是否导致了一场根本性的危机，而这场危机是否又孕育了信仰的个性化和多元化？第三，夫妻关系和日常婚姻生活进入人们的视野。联邦共和国各地的天主教婚姻指导机构仍然必须处理那些无法适应多胎妊娠的妇女的首要焦虑。该项目依靠档案资料（主教和神父与平信徒的通信、“Pfarrgemeinderäte”的文件、教职员、婚姻指导局）、天主教出版物（教区报纸）和对当代证人的询问。该项目将把西德天主教的历史和寻找具体的“天主教”变化的动力与20世纪70年代更普遍的历史转折点的理想联系起来。

The encyclical Humanae vitae of 25 July 1968, which forbade Catholics the implementation of artificial birth control, gave way to enormous reactions both within the catholic world and beyond. For this, it must be regarded as a major event in modern church history. The decision of Pope Paul VI. to connect the legitimacy of marital sexuality with the possibility of pregnancy did arouse some euphoria, but mainly deep disappointment in clerics and laics of the Federal Republic. The project will investigate the reactions to Humanae Vitae during the 1970s by making use of emotional history and ritual theory approaches. Did Humanae Vitae help rising different “emotional communities” within West German Catholicism, which shape different groups and position until today? First, the project deals with rituals of protest, which were expressed through many letters to the bishops and demonstrations at the Katholikentag in Essen. Especially of interest seems to be the relationship between catholic protest to licensed birth control methods and more general political protests of 1968. Secondly, many reactions referred to the links and practices between confession and Holy Communion sacraments. Recent research seems to differ, whereas a spreading non- acceptance of the sacrament of confession took place since the early 1960s. Did the “emotional regime” (William Reddy) which priests exercised onto their flock lead to a fundamental crisis, and did the crisis nurture another boost of individualisation and pluralisation of the faith? Thirdly, the relationship between husband and wife and the everyday life of marriage comes into view. Catholic marriage guidance bureaus all over the Federal Republic still had to deal with the anxieties foremost of women who could not adjust to multiple pregnancies. The project relies on archival sources (correspondence of bishops and priests with laics, papers of the “Pfarrgemeinderäte”, faculty members, marriage guidance bureaus), catholic publications (diocesan newspapers) and questioning of contemporary witnesses.The project will link the history of West German Catholicism and the search for specifically “catholic” dynamics of change on one hand with more general ideals of historical turning points during the 1970s on the other hand.