Humanae Vitae 18

HUMANAE VITAE

ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PAUL VI
ON THE REGULATION OF BIRTH

JULY 25, 1968

The Church, Guarantor of True Human Values

18. It can be foreseen that this teaching will perhaps not be easily received by all: Too numerous are those voices -- amplified by the modern means of propaganda -- which are contrary to the voice of the Church. To tell the truth, the Church is not surprised to be made, like her divine Founder, a "sign of contradiction",[22] yet she does not because of this cease to proclaim with humble firmness the entire moral law, both natural and evangelical. Of such laws the Church was not the author, nor consequently can she be their arbiter; she 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.

In defending conjugal morals in their integral wholeness, the Church knows that she contributes towards the establishment of a truly human civilization; she engages man not to abdicate from his own responsibility in order to rely on technical means; by that very fact she defends the dignity of man and wife. Faithful to both the teaching and the example of the Savior, she shows herself to be the sincere and disinterested friend of men, whom she wishes to help, even during their earthly sojourn, "to share as sons in the life of the living God, the Father of all men."[23]

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Not only did the world reject this teaching but practically all of Christianity. Even the majority of Catholics found the teaching to be "not easily received". In fact entire Theological and Philosophical constructs were fabricated to justify the disent within the Church. When Jesus said, "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you" it was not easily received. "On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" "From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him."

Is it any wonder that so many turned away from the authority of the Papacy and the Church? The greatest number of those resistant, however, simply stayed. In the relativistic minds of our current culture it didn't matter what the authority of the Church said anyway. They would simply define their ideas of dogma and truth. It was actually the most destructive type of rebellion and led to the decline of civilization. Prov. 29:18, "Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but blessed is he who keeps the law." When the truth is rejected, decadence ensues.