Two weeks ago, I began paraphrasing Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae (On Humans Life) which deals with the regulation of birth. This was occasioned by the Obama Administration's attempt to force Catholic institutions to go against the conscience by asking insurance companies to pay for artificial birth control. The following is the conclusion.
Let it be considered also that a dangerous weapon would thus be placed in the hands of those public authorities who take no heed of moral exigencies. Who could blame a government for applying to the solution of the problems of the community those means acknowledged to be licit for married couples in the solution of a family problem? Who will stop rulers from favoring, from even imposing upon their peoples, if they were to consider it necessary, the method of contraception which they judge to be most efficacious? In such a way men, wishing to avoid individual, family, or social difficulties encountered in the observance of the divine law, would reach the point of placing at the mercy of the intervention of public authorities the most personal and most reserved sector of conjugal intimacy.
Consequently, if the mission of generating life is not to be exposed to the arbitrary will of men, one must necessarily recognize insurmountable limits to the possibility of man's domination over his own body and its functions; limits which no man, whether a private individual or one invested with authority, may licitly surpass. (Humanae Vitae, no. 17)
Pope Paul was prophetic. Indeed the federal government is imposing artificial contraception upon not only us but also on third world countries through the UN. This is blatantly against the freedom to exercise religion and just plain wrong.
Pope Paul ends his encyclical by recognizing that there will be much opposition to this teaching especially through the propaganda. But, the Church's mission is to teach the entire moral law. She is not the author of these laws and therefore not the arbiter. The Church is only "...their depositary and their interpreter, without ever being able to declare to be licit that which is not so by reason of its intimate and unchangeable opposition to the true good of man." (no. 18) "The Church, in fact, cannot have a different conduct towards men than that of the Redeemer:" (no. 19)
Finally, with regard to those responsible for governing peoples, he wrote:
...no solution to these difficulties is acceptable "which does violence to man's essential dignity" and is based only on an utterly materialistic conception of man himself and of his life. The only possible solution to this question is one which envisages the social and economic progress both of individuals and of the whole of human society, and which respects and promotes true human values. (no. 26)
Pope Paul ends his encyclical by recognizing that there will be much opposition to this teaching especially through the propaganda. But, the Church's mission is to teach the entire moral law. She is not the author of these laws and therefore not the arbiter. The Church is only "...their depositary and their interpreter, without ever being able to declare to be licit that which is not so by reason of its intimate and unchangeable opposition to the true good of man." (no. 18) "The Church, in fact, cannot have a different conduct towards men than that of the Redeemer:" (no. 19)
Finally, with regard to those responsible for governing peoples, he wrote:
...no solution to these difficulties is acceptable "which does violence to man's essential dignity" and is based only on an utterly materialistic conception of man himself and of his life. The only possible solution to this question is one which envisages the social and economic progress both of individuals and of the whole of human society, and which respects and promotes true human values. (no. 26)
Father Stanley
We Are Catholic!
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