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Humanae Vitae: Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Paul VI

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With barbarians at the gate (and many, sad to say, inside the gate) clamoring for moral license, Pope Paul VI responded with this famous encyclical reconfirming the Church's position on the regulation of births.

It is a beautiful document that glorifies marriage and will inspire any couple to deeper, fuller spirituality. Anyone who is looking for understanding with regard to marriage, relationships, or sexuality will find much wisdom here.

Pope Paul presents the Catholic case against artificial birth control with precision and sound logic. Eerily, he forsees how easy access to birth control will corrupt man and society:

"Let them consider, first of all, how wide and easy a road would thus be opened to conjugal infidelity and to a general lowering of morality. One does not need much experience to know human weakness and to understand that human beings--especially the young, who are so vulnerable on this point--have need of encouragement to be faithful to the moral law, and must not be offered an easy means to evade its observance." You wonder how things would be if schools taught this point of view instead of sex education that facilitates and reinforces immoral actions ...

"Consider also the dangerous weapon that would thus be placed in the hands of those public authorities who have no concern for the requirements of morality." While China is notorious for forced birth control of its population, you wonder if we are not far behind when schools and other public institutions pass out condoms and our government legislates against life.

"Consequently, if one does not want to see the mission of generating life exposed to the arbitrary decisions of men, one must of necessity recognize certain absolute limits to the possibility of a human being's dominion over his or her body and its functions..." With stem-cell research already here and cloning and other advanced methods of genetic engineering on the horizon, I think this point takes on even more importance as a warning.

Two points stood out to me in this brief but powerful document. First, Pope Paul reminds us that sexual relations have a physical and spiritual dimension. Sex cannot be reduced a mere physical act. Second, he explains how self-control with regard to our sexual impulses is a good thing, not a punishment:

"Such discipline bestows upon family life fruits of serenity and peace, and facilitates the solution of other problems; it fosters attention to one's partner, helps both spouses drive out selfishness, the enemy of true love; and deepens their sense of responsibility." Amen.

These words fly in the face of modern secular thinking, where sex is equated with love. Pope Paul was a realist: he mentions a few times that his teaching will be hard for people to accept; in fact, he almost concedes that society as a whole may well reject the teaching. It has, and we can judge for ourselves where it has gotten us since 1968.

For the way His Holiness was vilified when this document came out in 1968, Pope Paul VI should be known as Paul the Confessor. He truly suffered for the Church over this encyclical letter. And that is quite a shame, for his teaching in Humanae Vitae has turned out to be prophetic. A must read for anyone interested in life issues today. With the state of much of the world in our time( about 70% of all conceptions in Russia end in abortion) Paul's wisdom is sure help and a much needed path to a more caring and holy world. The sanctity of life is paramount.

Few teachings of the Church are so challenged as the teaching on artificial birth control. Yet few who malign the Church have made the effort to read this monumental but brief document that explains the beauty that underlies that teaching. Those who would malign would do well to read and understand this great work first. Better to understand than criticize with false assumptions concerning what it contains. It is not, as some contend, an enslavement to blind obedience but an affirmation of the dignity of man. Not a shallow assertion of political sound-bites but real food and real medicine for a wounded human condition. Read it and see the higher calling to which you have been called. Not as mere beasts driven and enslaved by their passions and selfish desires, but as men and women created in the image of God for good works. The brevity of the document and simplicity of the foundational principles it contains make it an easy read. Every Christian, Catholic or Protestant, will find a wealth herein. A must read also for any seeking to understand the later development of the Theology of the Body from Pope John Paul II, the great. Do not presume to understand a Christian view of birth control without first understanding the content of this encyclical. Read it as many times as it takes to grasp the deep beauty and profound significance it contains for our day.

What this Pope has written all those decades ago has proven to be prophetic in that he told us what would happen if things didn't change direction. Well, they didn't change direction and now we are getting ready to inaugurate a President who is in favor of infanticide, abortion, euthanasia. How much killing can one person support? I highly recommend a prayerful reading of this amazing document. Let it reform your conscience - after all, we are to follow our WELL FORMED consciences.

I remember the criticism that met the publication of this Encyclical. The people who considered themselves the most informed, who thought they possessed the keenest minds agreed that Pope Paul VI got it all wrong. How could he be so out of touch with reality?

This 30 page teaching to the Church and to the world could not have been more correct. It presents the truth of Church teaching and it tells us what would happen if the teaching was ignored. Well, the teaching was largely ignored. Guess what? The dire predictions actually came true, we have seen all the evil consequences that were foretold more than two generations ago.

If you want to help save the world, then get this and give it to as many young couples as possible.

Catholics simply cannot support capital punishment nor go to war, nor fund it. Rather, as our present Pope points out in his Sacramentum Caritatis, the Eucharist we share compels us to alter the unjust structures which leave so many starving.

See also Pope Paul VI's On the Development of Peoples, Populorum Progresio. and Evangelii Nuntiandi: On Evangelization in the Modern World. Together they constitute the womb to tomb pro-life seamless garment dogma so clearly delineated by our own Bishop's Conference.

Also read Peace on Earth (Pacem in Terris): Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Pope John XXIII Addressed to All Mankind and Mater et magistra, encyclical letter of his holiness Pope John XXIII; Christianity and social progress.

Unfortunately the other reviewers do not seem to have read this present encyclical any more than they can spell encyclical, or define it.

We cannot support imperialist warfare and claim to support this encyclical. We cannot support our presence in Iraq, where we have ended one million lives in the pursuit of oil fields, and say that we support this encyclical.

We cannot support capital punishment and say that we support this encyclical. Read Catholic writer Antoinette Bosco's Choosing Mercy: A Mother of Murder Victims Pleads to End the Death Penalty. See the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop's The Culture of Life & the Penalty of Death as well as such works of moral theology as Pro-Life/Pro-Peace: Life-Affirming Alternatives to Abortion, War, Mercy Killing and the Death Penalty, Catholics And The Death Penalty: Six Things Catholics Can Do To End Capital Punishment, Commentary on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 37: Prohibition of Torture, Death Penalty, Life Imprisonment and Deprivation of Liberty, etc.

We cannot tacitly approve economic, educational, medical, social, opportunity and other inequalities in this nation, and say we support this encyclical. See the same USCCB's Place At the Table: A Catholic Recommitment to Overcome Poverty and to Respect the Dignity of All God's Children a Pastoral Reflection of the U.s. Catholic Bishops and Economic justice for all: Pastoral letter on Catholic social teaching and the U.S. economy (Publication / Office of Publishing and Promotion Services, United States Catholic Conference)), etc., as well as the final sections of Sacramentum Caritatis.

We cannot vote GOP and say we follow Jesus Christ, or this present encyclical.

Read this encyclical and pray the Holy Spirit of God's Peace and compassion opens your heart and mind to understand how and why.

Read also the USCCB's Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response a Pastoral Letter on War and Peace and ANYTHING by the Rev. Father John Dear, especially his Disarming the Heart: Toward a Vow of Nonviolence and Jesus the Rebel: Bearer of God's Peace and Justice, and you will see why not. For further understanding of the moral theological questions addressed in this important encyclical also please search the writings of the respected Catholic scholar and moral theologian the Reverend Father Charles Curran.