LONDON — A recent conference hosted by the Archdiocese of Westminster held in the heart of London had speakers addressing many of the most challenging aspects of marriage and family life with a candor and clarity rarely heard today.
Edmund Adamus, director of life and family at the archdiocese, said he was not concerned about speaking unapologetically about sensitive topics. “No one seems to mind about the straightforward manner with which Pope Francis speaks on certain issues and themes, why should there not be the full and unambiguous articulation of the moral teaching of the Church at a conference about authentic human sexuality and its place in marriage?” he told LifeSiteNews.
The conference at St Patrick's Church Soho included speakers Nicky and Sila Lee, John-Henry Westen, Sister Renee Mirkes, Jonathon Doyle, and more who had no qualms about talking on sexuality, openness to life, and the struggles and joys of love and children. The conference was held in anticipation of the extraordinary synod on the family planned for October in Rome.
Adamus told LifeSiteNews that two thoughts formed his rationale for the ‘Choose Life Choose Love’ conference.
“One was from the bishops of the 2012 synod in the new evangelization who in their final statement declared that couples faithful to the Church's unpalatable and unfashionable teaching on contraception were too often, in their words, ‘penalised’ by a lack of ‘ecclesial support’ and this had to change,” he said. “The other insight is that of Pope Benedict who in his book-length interview 'Light of the World' speaks of the perspectives of Humanae vitae always remaining correct and that those who live by it will become, as he puts it, ‘fascinating models to follow.’”
“The Church calls all of us and everybody out there in the world back to the observance of the norms of the natural law which is the norm of right reason as interpreted by the Church’s doctrine. Through the ages the Church teaches that each – each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life.”
Adamus quoted soon-to-be sainted Pope Paul VI who proclaimed in Humanae Vitae that it is “a profound act of charity to withhold nothing of the saving teaching of Christ.” Adamus added: “Paul VI also said when the truth is spoken grace accompanies it. Falsehood and error bears no blessing. We must swamp error with truth.”
“Revisiting, indeed celebrating the Church's vision for human sexuality through the prism of authentic spousal love makes all the difference,” said Adamus. “We deliberately chose to hold aloft the actual testimony of couples who personify and embody the teaching of Humanae vitae to move away from seeing the teaching as a law to be observed and embracing it as a life-giving vision to be lived.”
The archdiocesan director of pastoral affairs concluded, “In this age of rights to everything why not the right to the fullness of truth about Catholic moral teaching?”
The talks from the conference are available at the website of the Westminster Archdiocese here.