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[Catholic Caucus] Humanae Vitae is ahead of the “new” morality of the Pontifical Academy for LifeTo reaffirm Christian anthropology and the natural law in matters of life and family not only in the face of external criticism but —paradoxically— at a time when a "radical paradigm shift" is being advocated within the hierarchy itself: this is the purpose of a conference to be held in Rome from December 8–10, conveived specifically in response to a volume promoted by the Pontifical Academy for Life [PAL] entitled Theological Ethics of Life: Scripture, tradition, and practical challenges, and published last summer, incidentally, a...

[Catholic Caucus] Theologian at Academy for Life Claims One May Dissent From Church Teaching on ContraceptionThe Pontifical Academy for Life has published an interview with a theologian who says Catholic teaching on contraception is open for “theological discussion, within the Church, and even the possibility of dissent.”The interview with Father Maurizio Chiodi, a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life since 2017, was published in Italian and English and shared on the pontifical academy’s Twitter page. It was conducted by Fabrizio Mastrofini, the communications and social media manager of the Pontifical Academy for Life.The Pontifical Academy for Life presented the...

[Catholic Caucus] Official: Vatican Justifies (Artificial) ContraceptionIf "practical circumstances" make “the choice to generate irresponsible”, one may resort to contraceptive techniques, Prelate Gilfredo Marengo writes in Theological Ethics of Life, a book collecting talks giving at a conference organised by the Pontifical Academy "for Life" and published July 1 by the Libreria Editrice Vaticana, the Vatican's official publishing house.Lima's Pachamama-Archbishop Carlos Castillo writes in his contribution that “it is not healthy for mankind to always have 'swords of Damocles,' threatening damnation, whenever norms are neglected” referring to artificial methods of contraception, not to the Roman Rite which Francis tries to...

[Catholic Caucus] “Humanae Vitae” Farewell. Here Comes the One Who Will Celebrate Its FuneralPublished as received. The author of the commentary, Thibaud Collin, is a professor of philosophy at the Collège Stanislas in Paris and has written important essays on “gender” theory, same-sex marriage, and political secularism. His latest book, from 2018, is entitled: “Le mariage chrétien at-il encore un avenir?”The starting point for his reflection is the appointment of Philippe Bordeyne, 61, moral theologian, rector of the Institut Catholique of Paris, as president of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, replacing PierAngelo Sequeri.The...

Many Catholics today already possess the intuition that there is a crucial link, so to speak, between Humanae Vitae and homosexuality. They can see how the severing of the unitive and procreative meanings of marital relations—and the reduction of marital relations to mere “sex”—paved the way for the ideologies of “orientation” and “gender” that generate so-called “sexual minorities” and “sexual identities.” Yet, the genie was let out of the bottle so long ago that most of us can no longer see just how glaringly obvious this connection really is. To get a glimpse, one needs to go back to the...

Opposition Against "Beatification" Of “Fidel Castro In Cassock”, the Prophet of Madness The Brazilian born Catholic writer Raymond de Souza sent a report about the sinister side of Archbishop Helder Camara (+1999) to the US Nuncio and to the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Angelo Becciu.In 2015, the Vatican authorised the opening of a beatification process of the Anti-Catholic Brazilian prelate.De Souza writes that Camara started his public life as a party official and private secretary of the political activist Plinio Salgado (+1975) who led the Brazil fascist movement in the 1930s.Then, Camara morphed into...

The unintended consequence of widespread birth control — on individuals, families and society — cannot be denied. Loneliness has become an “epidemic” in the world today, says scholar Mary Eberstadt, author of the 2013 book “Adam and Eve After the Pill." “Fifty years after the embrace of the pill — undeniably, because of the embrace of the pill — loneliness is spreading across the materially better-off countries of the planet." She expands on the themes of her new article, describing the “prophetic power” of “Humanae Vitae” (“On Human Life”), Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical letter on birth control and married...

There is one teaching that most Protestants readily recognize as Catholic, and it is usually received with derision: the prohibition of artificial means of birth control. The Protestants in my circles often disparage this teaching with little knowledge of Humanae Vitae, perhaps the most significant document to address birth control over the last one hundred years. Our distaste for things Roman Catholic, dating back to the sixteenth century, has deprived us of a wealth of theological wisdom...Our acceptance of most forms of birth control is not helping us teach the next generation about sex and sexuality. It is time for...

I first read Humanae Vitae as a Protestant. Its truthfulness made me weep. It was Humanae Vitae that succinctly described my dignity as a human being, that as a woman I was not a second-class citizen to man. The encyclical, which mentions early on “the dignity of woman and her place in society”, stresses the reciprocity and complementarity of man and woman. A woman must be revered: artificial contraception encourages a man to “disregard…her physical and emotional equilibrium” and “reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires.” Paul VI’s words told me that my...

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen once famously said, "There are not 100 people in America who hate the Catholic Church, but millions who hate what they mistakenly think the Catholic Churches teaches." Those people include many in the media. July 25 marked the 50th anniversary of Humanae Vitae. The encyclical letter by Pope Paul VI affirmed the dignity human life and urged against the use of birth control. It’s worth reading the transformative document for two reasons: it’s brief, and the media regularly distort it. Case in point: On July 26, Vice’s healthcare site, Tonic, slammed the document with the headline,...

The most recent sign of the loss of faith on the Emerald Isle is the closing of Northern Ireland's only seminary, which was founded 185 years ago. Saint Malachy's Seminary in Belfast, which started forming future priests in 1833, is now closing. It was used for teaching philosophy to seminarians before sending them on to Ireland's only seminary in Maynooth. The closing of the seminary in Northen Ireland leaves only St. Patrick's Seminary in Maynooth, and it is riddled with scandal. Ireland's seminary scandal has roots dating back to the clerical rejection of Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae. John Lacken,...

Humanae Vitae: Predicting Our Current CrisesMatthew B. Rose We began our reflection on Humanae vitae, which was signed 50 years ago today, by looking at the historical context of the encyclical; we then moved to identify the various questions Bl. Pope Paul VI sought to address in this important letter. Now we turn our attention to one of the most crucial sections of the encyclical, paragraph 17, wherein Paul VI warns of the negative consequences if society ignores the Church’s teachings on life and sexuality.While many dissenters scoffed at the Holy Father’s warnings in 1968, fifty years of history have...

A letter that Cardinal Karol Wojtyla sent to Pope Paul VI in 1969, published here in full for the first time in English, underscores that Humanae vitae’s ban on contraception is an “infallible” and “irrevocable” teaching that the Church herself “has no power to change.” According to Msgr. Livio Melina, former president of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Rome, Wojtyła’s letter to Paul VI is also decisive as it demonstrates that Humanae vitae “is not a matter of advice entrusted to the interpretation of conscience, but of a binding doctrinal teaching.” The...

An article by the Vatican correspondent Cindy Wooden of Catholic News Service provides further ominous signs that Pope Francis intends to undermine the teaching of Humanae Vitae (HV), which reaffirmed the Church’s infallible teaching on the intrinsic evil of contraception, in the same manner he has undermined the teaching of all his predecessors on the intrinsic evil of adultery in the form of divorce and “remarriage.”  That is, he will reduce the teaching to an ideal that is worth pursuing, to be sure, but not a divine command to which there are no exceptions, violation of which involves intrinsically disordered...

De Mattei: The Birth of Humanae Vitae in light of the Vatican Archives Roberto de Mattei Corrispondenza Romana July 18, 2018 At the beginning of 2017, Pope Francis set up “a study committee” to prepare for the 50th anniversary of the encyclical Humanae Vitae (July 25th 2018). The existence of this “secret” committee was brought to light some months later by two Catholic publications Stilum Curiae* and Corrispondenza Romana** The committee coordinated by Monsignor Gilfedo Marengo, has the task of finding the documentation in the Vatican Archives, related to the preparatory work for Humanae Vitae, which occurred during and after...

Sandro Magister has written a piece in which he proposes that a new book by Gilfredo Marengo on the genesis of the encyclical Humanae Vitae (HV) represents “an unexpected obstacle” to “[t]he campaign that is underway to demolish ‘Humanae Vitae’ — the 1968 encyclical of Paul VI that said no to artificial contraceptives.” I respectfully disagree. Based on the extensive summary of the book’s account provided by Andrea Tornielli, which Magister views as sufficient to see where Marengo is going, it is quite clear that Marengo, a member of Pope Francis’ semi-secret commission to “reappraise” HV on its fast-approaching 50th...

Penny Mordaunt spoke after meeting the President of the Pontifical Academy for LifeA British minister has called on the Church to permit artificial contraception after a meeting with senior Vatican officials last week. Penny Mordaunt, the International Development Secretary, said 800 girls and women lose their lives every day due to pregnancy and childbirth complications, and claimed that wider access to contraception would help alleviate the problem. Faith leaders should help change “deeply held beliefs and attitudes” in order to allow women greater access to “reproductive healthcare”, she said. Ms Mordaunt disclosed her words to the Daily Telegraph after meeting...

The official website of the Austrian bishops under Cardinal Christoph Schönborn’s watch, as well as his own diocesan website, has published a series of articles in light of the 50th anniversary of the promulgation of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae. These articles present a major undermining of essential Church teachings as they were laid out in Humanae Vitae, even putting into doubt the abiding unlawfulness of contraception. Cardinal Schönborn is the “media bishop” of the Austrian Bishops’ Conference and, as such, officially the editor of Kathpress, the news website of the bishops’ conference. He is also responsible, as the...

1968 - A Year When Many in the Church Drank the Poison of the World Msgr. Charles Pope • June 19, 2018 • Corner of 7th & N Street NW, Washington D.C., April 8, 1968There was something awful about the year 1968. Fifty years later we are still reeling from its effects. Perhaps we do well to ponder the deep wounds that still fester today.I was a young lad at the time, and almost everything I saw on the television news terrified me. Harrowing nightly reports from Vietnam (where my father was stationed) detailed that day’s casualties; I always...

ROME, June 14, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) — Nearly 500 British priests have issued a statement upholding Humanae Vitae and proposing it as the key to healing society, amid reports of moves within the Vatican to water down its teaching and accommodate the Church to modern trends. In a letter released to the Catholic press on June 14 (see full letter below), the group of priests from Great Britain state that the Church’s perennial teaching on human sexuality should be at the forefront in re-building a culture of life, and stress its importance for Catholics and non-Catholics alike. The initiative, called “Humanae...