- President's Perspective
A Metaphysical Crisis
by Fr. Blaise Berg, STD
CANFP NEWS Spring 2026
When it comes to commentators on today’s culture, especially when it comes to topics such as marriage and motherhood, I hold Mary Harrington in high regard. According to a brief bio in Wikipedia, Mary Harrington is a British journalist and contributing editor of the substack UnHerd. The Wikipedia entry notes that in 2023, an event was scheduled to take place at the Georgia Room in New York City to promote Mary’s book Feminism Against Progress. Apparently, the book release was canceled because “the venue received critical responses on social media regarding Harrington’s opposition to gender-affirmed care for transgender youth”. For that reason alone, Ms. Harrington gets a badge of honor in my book.
In early March, Ms. Harrington gave a talk sponsored by First Things entitled “Our Crisis is Metaphysical” at the Hillsdale College, Washington D.C. campus. In the talk, which can be accessed on the First Things website, Mary covered much ground and spoke very fast about some deep philosophical truths. She mentioned briefly her own journey of being a philosophy “nerd” and encountering motherhood for the first time at the age of 38. And, from time to time during the talk, you can hear Mary encouraging the parents with slightly rambunctious infants to stay in the lecture hall and comfort their children rather than to feel as if they needed to leave. It made sense. After all, her talk was about motherhood.
For the sake of this message, I would just like to highlight one particular part of the talk and provide some brief commentary. About midway through her talk, Mary explained:
In Feminism Against Progress, I argued that the point at which we began in earnest to technologize ourselves was the contraceptive pill. This was distinct from previous medical innovations in the sense that it set out not to cure illness but normal human health. You don’t take the pill in hope of being restored to a more perfect expression of your substantial form and telos, but to kill the former with the aim of severing the sexual act from the latter.
Okay, absolutely, this is something that promoters of NFP have been saying for decades: the contraceptive pill “kills” the most perfect form of the bodies, souls and unions of those who invite it into their lives and “severs” the sexual act from the “telos” or end for which God created it, which is to be unitive and procreative.
Mary continued:
As I reflected on this, it felt obvious that there exists a healthy human normal, that comes in two sexes and whose stable reality is the foundational premise of all medical interventions up to the pill. It also seems to me that there is a difference in kind between medicines that seek to bring someone closer to that normal and this one, which set out to interrupt, coopt or otherwise reorder that normal for the relief of man’s estate, or simply to relieve men’s estate, really, or simply to serve individual preference.
With this observation, Mary again put her finger on something that we all know too well, while also displaying her sense of humor: for the first time in medical history, a treatment emerged (the contraceptive pill) which sought to destroy, rather than to heal, human procreation.
This step then led to what we have today, as Mary noted:
Having realized this, it then struck me how many post-pill medical, cultural and political innovations from transgender medicine to gestational surrogacy are predicated on the same refusal to see human form and human ends. The basic aspiration is to become, as Descartes put it, is to become masters and possessors of nature, including our own human nature. The central move is against the metaphysical ground of our own existence.
In other words, it all comes down to metaphysics: Who am I? Why do I exist? What is my purpose in life? As a practicing sinner, I mean, Catholic Christian, I can answer these questions theologically and add to what Mary Harrington explained philosophically, and that is that God created me, my parents procreated me and Jesus Christ died for me and rose from the dead, so that I can be united with God and receive His grace in this life and live eternally with Him in the next.
Happy Easter everyone!
About The Author
Fr. Blaise Berg, STD
Rev. Blaise Berg, STD, President of the CANFP Executive Board, is Assistant Professor of Dogmatics at St. Patrick’s Seminary, Menlo Park, CA. Fr. Berg earned a BA from the University of San Francisco, an MBA from California Polytechnic University, a Baccalaureate degree in Sacred Theology, S.T.B at the Pontifical Gregorian University Rome, a Licentiate Degree in Sacred Theology, S.T.L. from the JPII Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family, Pontifical Lateran University, Rome. and a Doctoral Degree in Sacred Theology, S.T.D. from Pontifical Lateran University, Rome. He has served on the CANFP Board since 2003.
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