---

Canadian Bishops' Conference Praises Paul VI Encyclical Humanae Vitae

OTTAWA, July 11, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Catholic Organization for Life and Family (COLF), an arm of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), has released a message praising the Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae. The message, dated June 30, was given on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the Encyclical.

The message says, "The Church, like Paul VI, calls today's men and women to love through the total gift of themselves." It notes that "Natural family planning methods respect the indivisible link between a loving union and the procreative potential of intercourse in the context of married love." The Encyclical was controversial at the time of its publication in allowing for natural family planning to regulate births where necessary. However, it also confirmed the churches prohibition of the use of "all direct abortion, even for therapeutic reasons"; "direct sterilization, whether of the man or of the woman, whether permanent or temporary"; as well as saying it "is a serious error to think that a whole married life of otherwise normal relations can justify sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive and so intrinsically wrong."

The COLF message notes "Paul VI's prophetic outlook and the anthropological facts that led him to describe what characterizes marital love provide guideposts enabling us to uncover the real meaning of married love." The Encyclical has been widely regarded as prophetic having predicted in 1968 that contraception would "open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards"; and lead men to "forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection." It even predicted government enforced contraception, abortion and sterilization as practiced in China and India.

See the COLF message in today's Special Report:
HTML Version http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003/jul/030711a.html
ACROBAT Version http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2003_docs/cccbonhumanaevitae2003.pdf

See the Encyclical Humanae Vitae at:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_2507...

 Back to Top

---

MORE NEWS: LifeSiteNews.com Home Page  Last 10 Days   Archives   Special Reports

Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.