William May, R.I.P.

Via old friend Kevin Jones comes news of the passing of Dr. William May, Catholic moral theologian. I take note of it because he was one of the first resources a valued friend (and Jesuit priest) pointed me to in my early days as a convert.

An even fuller appreciation is offered by Connie Marshner at the Human Life Review. A fascinating fact therein revealed is that May was an early dissenter from Humanae Vitae. At the time he was "a PhD candidate in philosophy at Marquette University." [Where else?]. These were the heady days of Charles Curran's reign of moral heterodoxy at the Catholic University of America. In Humanae Vitae's wake, Curran "organized Catholic theologians around the world to sign a public letter dissenting from the encyclical. Graduate students in theology and philosophy departments were pressured by their professors to sign the document." May signed it.

As he later said, “It took courage not to sign the statement, and it took special courage in those who lacked secure employment.”

Shortly after, he was assigned by a publisher to edit Germain Grisez's Contraception and the Natural Law, was convinced by the arguments, and "quietly" had his name removed from that document of dissent. So quietly that he was hired by CUA's religion department, whose eminences did not know of his name's removal. But after five years of classroom teaching in support of HV, the department fired him. Yeah, at a Catholic school.

Suffice it to say that he was rescued, by the slimmest of margins; you can read the rest at the HLR site. May labored tirelessly in that particular vineyard - the one in which marriage and the family are nurtured - for the rest of his days. The Pro-Life movement's debt to him (among Catholic and non-Catholic alike) is probably beyond estimation.

Many of his written works are available at his homepage.

I hope he went straight to heaven.

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2 Responses to William May, R.I.P.

Lydia says:
December 27, 2014 at 10:00 pm (Edit)

I had never heard of him. Thanks for highlighting this.

William Luse says:
December 28, 2014 at 2:09 am (Edit)

That’s because he was an honest man, quiet and self-effacing, not at all typical of the intellectuals of our time. He was one of those guys who, upon discovering that his position was in fact in opposition to the natural law, or to the Church’s doctrinal competence, immediately jumped over to the right side. Quietly, of course, and once it was found out which side he was on, the bright lights in academe and the media ignored him.