Singapore Catholics already faced pressure from the government to soften their cautious attitude towards birth control. The government had, in 1965, published a White Paper on Family Planning detailing, among other things, a five-year plan to recruit 180,000 new acceptors of family planning with the IUD and the Pill being the primary means of birth prevention.³²

Singapore Catholics were thus put in a difficult situation: the state saw the Pill as a panacea to solving the country’s birth problems while Catholics were permitted only recourse to the Rhythm Method to regulate births.³³ Worse still, the government introduced various disincentives to discourage its citizens for having more than two children, including a reduction in maternity leave, as well as higher accouchement fees for the birth of every child. Family planning was also promoted as a step forward in the liberation of women.³⁴ Opposing the Pill or the IUD was seen as almost tantamount to opposing the right of women to control their fertility.

As such, obedience to the teachings of the Church came at quite a high price. It was no surprise that some Catholics decided that such a price was too high to pay. Indeed, the crisis which came with Humanae Vitae developed into not so much a debate about the permissibility of contraception but rather a genuine crisis of authority. “Following your conscience” became the watchword of many Catholics, which quickly meant that any Church teaching proposed by the Pope and the Bishops could be scrutinised and discarded if, at least according to this line of thinking, it went “against their conscience”.

In search of something better

Bereft of catechesis, confused by the post-conciliar changes, and unable to grasp the subtle theology of the various decrees, many Catholics, argued Hitchcock, “simply translated the conciliar reforms into the terms of the counterculture of the sixties, which was essentially the demand for liberation from all restraint on personal freedom”.³⁵ Indeed, so much was admitted by one priest who wondered if the (local) implementation of the council had been “poorly thought through, haphazard and superficial”.³⁶

With the rejection of the so-called “pre-Vatican II Church“, what then did Catholic students now affirm? The final instalment explores Catholic University students’ interest in the theology of liberation as an important mark of their Catholic identity.

Were you a member of the Catholic Students’ Society during this period? What are your memories of the Church during and just after Vatican II? Send your e-mails to theprompt@catholic.org

Nick Chui Yongtai graduated from NUS with a honours degree in history and is now working at the Family Life Society as a marketing executive. He also teaches catechism at St. Joseph’s Church (Bukit Timah).