Fifty years after its release, Blessed Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae (“Of Human Life”) is being praised as “prophetic”. Read more
Posts Tagged ‘Humanae Vitae’
Pope Paul VI, prophet
Thursday, November 30th, 2017
This coming July, we will mark the 50th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s deeply controversial encyclical letter Humanae Vitae. I won’t bore you with the details of the innumerable battles, disagreements, and ecclesial crises that followed upon this text. Suffice it to say that this short, pithily argued letter became a watershed in the post-conciliar Catholic Read more
50 years on the drafting of Humanae Vitae matters
Thursday, August 10th, 2017
As its 50th-anniversary approaches, the story of how Blessed Pope Paul VI arrived at the final text of Humanae Vitae will be a main focus of discussion. Paul VI issued his encyclical in 1968 after a commission of theologians and experts spent four years meeting to study in-depth whether the Church could be open to Read more
Theologian slams making Humanae Vitae into fetish
Tuesday, November 24th, 2015
An Irish theologian has slated US bishops for making “Humanae Vitae” into a “fetish” by which the Catholic Church is publicly known. Augustinian Fr Gabriel Daly said the 1968 encyclical by Pope Paul VI which banned contraception had never been accepted by the Church at large. The priest, 88, said this is in a lecture Read more
Appeal for synod to hold line on conscience and contraception
Tuesday, October 6th, 2015
Bishops at the synod on the family have been asked to reject a paragraph in the synod’s working document dealing with contraception. Theologians, philosophers and scholars issued the appeal in the American journal “First Things”. Among the signatories are academics from the Pontificial John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, as well Read more
Learning to be real with Pope Francis
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2015
It all depends on how you interpret Humanae Vitae. That’s essential to understanding what Pope Francis “really meant” in his recent string of remarks on having children. In fact, it’s a line that comes from the pope himself. He used it in an interview in March with Italy’s biggest-selling daily newspaper, Corriere della Sera. The Read more
The legacies of Blessed Paul VI
Tuesday, October 21st, 2014
(RNS) As he wraps up a Vatican meeting marked by sharp debates over sex and morality, Pope Francis on Sunday will honour one of his most controversial predecessors by beatifying Pope Paul VI, who is most famous for reaffirming the Catholic Church’s ban on artificial contraception. Beatification puts Paul one step shy of formal sainthood. The move Read more
Humanae Vitae model for Pope’s balance of doctrine and mercy
Tuesday, May 6th, 2014
Pope Francis’s praise for Humanae Vitae is key to understanding his dual emphases on clear doctrine and pastoral mercy, a senior Vatican observer says. Writing in L’Espresso, Sandro Magister noted there is growing pressure for a change in Church teaching on Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics. “There was similarly massive pressure for change in Read more
Humanae Vitae 45 years on: a personal story
Tuesday, August 6th, 2013
For the faithful it (birth control) is a sad and agonizing issue, for there is a cleavage between the official teaching of the Church and the contrary practice in most families. — Former Patriarch Maximos IV Saigh of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church quoted in What Happened at Vatican II, by John W. O’Malley. Recalling that Thursday was Read more
Humanae Vitae 45 years on: Paul VI was right
Tuesday, August 6th, 2013
While pondering last week’s sapphire anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life) and the continuing controversy over the so-called “birth control encyclical” throughout both Church and society, I came across a striking passage in an essay by Polish Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz, written shortly before his death in 2004. “Increasingly the institution Read more