Happy Anniversary, Humanae Vitae!

The 40th anniversary of the encyclical Humanae Vitae by Pope Paul VI stirs in me a mixture of joy and sadness. This is the 40th anniversary of the Catholic Church holding the line of Truth against a very popular cultural shift. It is the 40th anniversary of a new exploration of the meaning of marriage and sexuality. Unfortunately, it is also the 40th anniversary of widespread dissent within the Church, for no other encyclical in history has been more maligned than Humane Vitae. However, in these forty years Pope Paul VI's message of the proper role of sexuality and the necessity of children in the vocation of love has been vindicated.

The message of Humanae Vitae has proven to be the true road to liberation for women.

• "Contraception fosters a lack of reverence for women insofar as it frees up the arbitrary will of men and violates the limits of control set within creation" (McCarthy 706).
  
  
• It has often been argued that men can get away with being sexually promiscuous because they don't have to deal with pregnancy. The solution was to make it possible for women to get away with sexual promiscuity rather than calling both men and women to responsibility and virtue. The results have been the acceptance of abortion, increased unwed motherhood, and a rise in sexually transmitted diseases.
  
  
• "Contraceptive rights promise a measure of freedom, but the deeper irony is that they insure that procreation, parenting, and sexual pleasure continue to be defined according t the 'arbitrary will of men.'" (McCarthy 706).
  
  
• Motherhood has become a liability in a way that fatherhood has not. ". . . women have been liberated except in spheres of life where they cannot help being women" (ibid).
  
  
• "Contraception buttresses social practices that are inhospitable to children, so that women are burdened with child rearing but allowed to enter public and economic life only without their offspring. All the while, pornography, strip clubs, and other facts of the sex industry are an economic boon. Contraception has been indispensable in shaping liberation so that women continue to serve the sexual needs of men. In this way, sexual liberation has given a new meaning to 'a woman's role.' If the connection between sex and procreation is a problem for sexual liberation, it is a problem fundamentally for men, and severing the link is fundamentally liberation for men" (McCarthy 707).

The message of Humanae Vitae keeps human beings from being turned into "cogs in the machine."

• HV stood against forced contraception, sterilization and birth control for the sake of "population control." Overpopulation has proven to be a myth.
  
  
• HV emphasized the beauty of marriage as an expansion of love into new life, and therefore as a fulfillment of the human vocation to live in the image of God. Sterilized marriage has resulted in the deterioration of marriage as evidenced by no-fault divorce, homosexual marriage, and increased instances of unmarried cohabitation that put women and children at greater risk of abuse.
  
  
• HV encouraged us to see the creation of children as the fulfillment of the sexual act, and thus to value children as persons to be loved. The abortion movement has encouraged us to see children as "contraceptive failure," burdens and undefined cells that can be destroyed to remove the inconvenience.
  
  
• HV encouraged the use of the human intellect to understand sexuality, the human will to exercise self-control and the human vocation to love to move us to generosity in our hospitality toward new life. This makes human sexuality truly human and truly an act of love.
  

The message of Humanae Vitae has spurred Catholics to scientific research in the area of women's health and fertility.

• In the natural family planning world, "women's health" means maintaining or healing the reproductive system so that it works the way God intended it to.
  
  
• NaPro technology and Fertility Care (Pope Paul VI Institute) has made great scientific advances in understanding and healing women's reproductive systems.
  
  
• Women are taught to understand their fertility cycle and to recognize what is normal and what is not normal for their unique bodies.
  
  
• Natural family planning can be used to avoid pregnancy or to achieve it - and it is very effective at both.

Thank you, Pope Paul VI! I wish the world -had listened to you.

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