Humanae vitae

I talk a little bit about the science behind it, but I'm really going into theology of the body and I'm going into humana vitae, which like is the documents we read together when he was like, I don't know, this sounds crazy.

So like what does that mean? So we busted out Humanae Vitae by Pope Paul VI and we read it.

And he was very prophetic in his language.

Please, anyone listening to this, pull it out and read it in its entirety in saying what happens when couples welcome contraception into your marriage.

So break down what the Catholic Church's teaching is on sacramental versus natural marriage.

Okay.

So – there is a encyclical by Pope Paul VI who also wrote the Humanae Vitae that I talked about.

It is called Matrimonia Mixtia.

And he did that because he wanted to help people understand why the church teaches as and what she teaches regarding marriage and family.

And then in a particular way, he did it because he wanted to give a biblical foundation to what is found in Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae on human life, which, as I mentioned last week, was by and large poorly received, would

be an understatement.

That's the reason why he sought to do this.

And no other church document on no other moral teaching would ever be provided a kind of loophole like that like you can imagine women should be treated respectfully but you know if a man feels in his conscience that she's annoying and he starts screaming at her then he does so in good conscience or care for the environment or you know serving the needs of the poor but for contraception there was this big loophole this kind of weaponized ambiguity Now, most Canadians never heard of the Winnipeg Statement, but the effects kind of trickled down to the pew, and priests were afraid to talk about the teaching.

And so Pope Paul VI, who wrote Humanae Vitae, took a long time to write it, And the finished result is, I mean, I just happened to grab a copy of the book that I wrote about this.

This is the expanded version of the original title, Sexo Natural.

And I go through the process by which Paul VI drafted Humanae Vitae.

And the result is rather short.

It's only 31 paragraphs long.

And so the Church seemed to recalibrate her relationship to the world.

As a result, Catholics began to recalibrate their relationship to the Church.

So that's...

I mean, let's compare it with another controversial encyclical, Humanae Vitae.

You can say everything you want about that encyclical, but it is to the point.

Yeah, I've joked regularly about Pope Francis.

But in particular, Human sexuality.

So the rule was written after Humanae Vitae, which most people don't understand the encyclical at all.

They just think, oh, that's the church's contraception ban.

That's what that is.

But there's a lot of depth in Humanae Vitae.

JP2 himself had already begun decades before Humanae Vitae.

He had begun... speaking about who the human person is.

And in the end, when we understand who God created us to be, as JP2 did, there are conclusions that follow.

And the Church has emphatically... and consistently and persistently said, that is not true.

So even before Vatican II, going back to the time of Pope Pius XI in the early part of the 20th century, Pope Pius XII, and then of course coming up to the time of Pope Paul VI with Humanae Vitae, Pope John Paul II, etc., the Church has repeatedly reiterated the fact that abstaining from the marital act during the Fertile Time for a just reason—some people impose the word grave— and that is a misreading.

Actually, it's a reading of a draft of a document as opposed to the final language of it.

But the Church's teaching is that, sure, it can indeed be what's called the contraceptive mentality if you don't have a just or reasonable cause for doing this, and people could indeed be sinning if they enjoy the pleasure of the act without the responsibility that goes with it.

And the deacon said, well, he says, you know, whatever your conscience tells you, you should do.

and that didn't sit right because it's like I'm sitting here going my conscience isn't yet formed I'm still learning so what does the church say you see and the church says no contraception so it's like I went and read Humanae Vitae and it's like that makes so much more sense than saying follow your conscience because my conscience was not formed

Follow your heart.

I mean, that's a nice idea, but your heart can take you while you'd already gone down that road, right? You were trying to come back.

... of Pope John, uh, St. Pope John Paul the Great's works.

If, whenever he's something related to that too, uh, Humanae Vitae by Pope-

Oh, yeah

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