Humanae Vitae 17

HUMANAE VITAE

ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PAUL VI
ON THE REGULATION OF BIRTH

JULY 25, 1968

Grave Consequences of Methods of Artificial Birth Control

17. Upright men can even better convince themselves of the solid grounds on which the teaching of the Church in this field is based, if they care to reflect upon the consequences of methods of artificial birth control. Let them consider, first of all, how wide and easy a road would thus be opened up towards conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality. Not much experience is needed in order to know human weakness, and to understand that men -- especially the young, who are so vulnerable on this point -- have need of encouragement to be faithful to the moral law, so that they must not be offered some easy means of eluding its observance. It is also to be feared that the man, growing used to the employment of anti-conceptive practices, may finally lose respect for the woman and, no longer caring for her physical and psychological equilibrium, may come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion.

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. And such limits cannot be determined otherwise than by the respect due to the integrity of the human organism and its functions, according to the principles recalled earlier, and also according to the correct understanding of the "principle of totality" illustrated by our predecessor Pope Pius XII.[21]

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Prophetic! Let all the haters of the Papacy acknowledge that all of Christianity and in fact all of the world would be better off today had the clear warnings of this Pope been heeded. With all the authority invested in him by God, he clearly predicts the objectifying and using of women when he states that men "may come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment." Obviously, this has always been a temptation of men, but who would have known the level to which this evil would ascend in our time as young daughters wear writing on their rear ends and fathers do nothing about it. Pornography, which is everywhere, abortion, sexual immorality, and the destruction of marriage and the family have exploded since 1968.

He predicted the policies of China to limit families. The murder of the unborn is beyond measure in the deadliest century in history. At the very moment when most needed, just before the complete release of all perversity, God used the Church and His regent to warn the world. Undoubtedly, it was those who were given the most, those who already knew the Pope to be Christ's Vicar on earth that suffered the most in their rejection of the truth. I've already expressed this in posting #1.

How does such truth come from an institution supposedly established on falsehood? Can a house divided against itself stand? It is utterly impossible that an "anti-Christ" or enemy of God could stand to oppose that which has yielded the enemy more death and destruction of human life than Auschwitz and the Gulag. It is the Truth that defends life always and everywhere. Humanae Vitae is the truth pure and simple. It couldn't be any more clear. May God have mercy on those who ignore the truth to protect their own erroneous beliefs.