Why Is Humanae Vitae Rarely Spoken & Taught In The Church?

[centurionguard]

In my lifetime I have long wished and prayed that there will be someday out of the blue a Retraction of the Winnipeg Statement made by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

**
Vatican site reference to Humanae Vitae:** vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html

Winnipeg Statement: catholicinsight.com/online/church/humanae/article_960.shtml

Winnipeg Statement: lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004_docs/tragedyatwinnipeg.pdf

Many of the Woes in the Catholic Church resulting from the diminished if not obliterated concerns for the Sanctity of Life due to multi-millions if not billions of babies being aborted and the continual watering down of the Sanctity of Marriage owes itself to one of the greatest wounds in the Catholic Church where the encyclical Humanae Vitae was shot down and totally ignored by the CCCB in the Winnipeg Statement.

I can’t really say if in my lifetime if I’ll ever see the CCCB make a full retraction of the Winnipeg Statement. Have not enough devout Catholics prayed?

Never once in my lifetime in Canada have I heard a Canadian priest in the parishes I gone to across my country ever broach sentiments about Humanae Vitae from the Ambo.

Pourquoi/Why?

Is this much the same among Catholics in United States?

Father John Corapi (Winnipeg Statement: youtube.com/watch?v=jo0ElZMS7EY

 

[centurionguard]

This past Christmas 2010 during his Advent/Christmas address Pope Benedict gave a Strong Warning to the world. vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2010/december/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20101220_curia-auguri_en.html

For all its new hopes and possibilities, our world is at the same time troubled by the sense that moral consensus is collapsing,
consensus without which juridical and political structures cannot function.
Consequently the forces mobilized for the defence of such structures seem doomed to failure.

In this context, a vision of Saint Hildegard of Bingen came to my mind, a vision which describes in a shocking way what we have lived through this past year. “In the year of our Lord’s incarnation 1170, I had been lying on my sick-bed for a long time when, fully conscious in body and in mind, I had a vision of a woman of such beauty that the human mind is unable to comprehend. She stretched in height from earth to heaven. Her face shone with exceeding brightness and her gaze was fixed on heaven. She was dressed in a dazzling robe of white silk and draped in a cloak, adorned with stones of great price. On her feet she wore shoes of onyx. But her face was stained with dust, her robe was ripped down the right side, her cloak had lost its sheen of beauty and her shoes had been blackened. And she herself, in a voice loud with sorrow, was calling to the heights of heaven, saying, ‘Hear, heaven, how my face is sullied; mourn, earth, that my robe is torn; tremble, abyss, because my shoes are blackened!’
And she continued: ‘I lay hidden in the heart of the Father until the Son of Man, who was conceived and born in virginity, poured out his blood. With that same blood as his dowry, he made me his betrothed.
For my Bridegroom’s wounds remain fresh and open as long as the wounds of men’s sins continue to gape. And Christ’s wounds remain open because of the sins of priests. They tear my robe, since they are violators of the Law, the Gospel and their own priesthood; they darken my cloak by neglecting, in every way, the precepts which they are meant to uphold; my shoes too are blackened, since priests do not keep to the straight paths of justice, which are hard and rugged, or set good examples to those beneath them. Nevertheless, in some of them I find the splendour of truth.’

In the vision of Saint Hildegard, the face of the Church is stained with dust, and this is how we have seen it. Her garment is torn – by the sins of priests.
The way she saw and expressed it is the way we have experienced it this year. We must accept this humiliation as an exhortation to truth and a call to renewal.

The Book of Revelation includes among the great sins of Babylon – the symbol of the world’s great irreligious cities – the fact that it trades with bodies and souls and treats them as commodities (cf. Rev 18:13).
In this context, the problem of drugs also rears its head, and with increasing force extends its octopus tentacles around the entire world – an eloquent expression of the tyranny of mammon which perverts mankind. ((“No pleasure is ever enough, and the excess of deceiving intoxication becomes a violence that tears whole regions apart – and all this in the name of a fatal misunderstanding of freedom which actually undermines man’s freedom and ultimately destroys it.”))

In order to resist these forces, we must turn our attention to their ideological foundations. In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorized as something fully in conformity with man and even with children. This, however, was part of a fundamental perversion of the concept of ethos.
**It was maintained – even within the realm of Catholic theology – that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself.
There is only a “better than” and a “worse than”. Nothing is good or bad in itself. Everything depends on the circumstances and on the end in view.
Anything can be good or also bad, depending upon purposes and circumstances.
Morality is replaced by a calculus of consequences, and in the process it ceases to exist. **
The effects of such theories are evident today. Against them, Pope John Paul II, in his 1993 Encyclical Letter Veritatis Splendor,
indicated with prophetic force in the great rational tradition of Christian ethos
the essential and permanent foundations of moral action. Today, attention must be focussed anew on this text as a path in the formation of conscience.
It is our responsibility to make these criteria audible and intelligible once more for people today as paths of true humanity, in the context of our paramount concern for mankind.

Only if there is such a consensus on the essentials can constitutions and law function. This fundamental consensus derived from the Christian heritage is at risk wherever its place, the place of moral reasoning, is taken by the purely instrumental rationality of which I spoke earlier. In reality, this makes reason blind to what is essential. To resist this eclipse of reason and to preserve its capacity for seeing the essential, for seeing God and man, for seeing what is good and what is true, is the common interest that must unite all people of good will.

The very future of the world is at stake.

These are not my words, but our Pope Benedict XVI’s words.
A very strong warning to the entire Church.

Mankind is on the brink of destruction!

What does this message say to the Empire of the Western World?

 

[buffalo]

Cowardice and disbelief.

 

[PAboy57]

When studies and polls show that the fastest growing religion is NONE we of faith have to recognize we have a problem.

This problem begins with the family and the teaching of children in the faith. I failed miserably at this as that was the time I turned my back on Mother Church and my faith. Fortunately my children we taught reason, responsibility and kindness – as they wanted to be treated. Now I have to go back and do what I should have done 25 years ago. Thank God for Fr. Corapi and his DVDs for Christmas presents!!! They no longer get money for birthdays and other commercialized events.

There is a generation or two that seriously need teaching and many of them call themselves Catholic but really know nothing of their faith. Many times the converts and reverts are the best schooled because they journeyed to find the truth, read everything they could find and ended up at the Catholic Church.

Many families are now at best cafeteria Catholics and do not have any idea of the more intimate aspects of our faith. They spend their minimum 1 hour at the Church and no longer really help in any other way. Their prayer life is nil and they don’t really care about the issues. They feel because they helped for a few years when children attended Catholic school that they fulfilled their duty. Few recognize this faith is a life long commitment. Lack of education, contraception, abortion as a back up to contraception and self love got us to where we are today. This is the battle that continues to get stronger and the fight more difficult. Not to mention clergy’s watered down messages so no one is offended. I dispise not telling the truth as it was meant to be told. I don’t want to sound mean to clergy but they are part of the education and ongoing problem.

I come to Catholic Answers so my journey isn’t wasted and my learning and faith continues to grow. We have to get others to have a stronger zeal for the faith and learn what they should have learned years ago. Not an easy mission but one that must go on. I appreciate the people on this forum for providing encouragement, asking interesting questions and letting us know how to continue to grow in our faith.

Let’s continue to engage ourselves in the battle.

Sorry for the rant.

God Bless.

 

[centurionguard]

When studies and polls show that the fastest growing religion is NONE we of faith have to recognize we have a problem.

This problem begins with the family and the teaching of children in the faith. I failed miserably at this as that was the time I turned my back on Mother Church and my faith. Fortunately my children we taught reason, responsibility and kindness – as they wanted to be treated. Now I have to go back and do what I should have done 25 years ago. Thank God for Fr. Corapi and his DVDs for Christmas presents!!! They no longer get money for birthdays and other commercialized events.

There is a generation or two that seriously need teaching and many of them call themselves Catholic but really know nothing of their faith. Many times the converts and reverts are the best schooled because they journeyed to find the truth, read everything they could find and ended up at the Catholic Church.

Many families are now at best cafeteria Catholics and do not have any idea of the more intimate aspects of our faith. They spend their minimum 1 hour at the Church and no longer really help in any other way. Their prayer life is nil and they don’t really care about the issues. They feel because they helped for a few years when children attended Catholic school that they fulfilled their duty. Few recognize this faith is a life long commitment. Lack of education, contraception, abortion as a back up to contraception and self love got us to where we are today. This is the battle that continues to get stronger and the fight more difficult. Not to mention clergy’s watered down messages so no one is offended. I dispise not telling the truth as it was meant to be told. I don’t want to sound mean to clergy but they are part of the education and ongoing problem.

I come to Catholic Answers so my journey isn’t wasted and my learning and faith continues to grow. We have to get others to have a stronger zeal for the faith and learn what they should have learned years ago. Not an easy mission but one that must go on. I appreciate the people on this forum for providing encouragement, asking interesting questions and letting us know how to continue to grow in our faith.

Let’s continue to engage ourselves in the battle.

Sorry for the rant.

God Bless.

I don’t think what you wrote was a rant. Many of us devout Catholics are faced with taking a very serious humble look at not just our lives but our very souls. Perhaps more so for me in someways because I’m faced with terminal illness and desire God’s grace to save my soul. I fear much that is happening in the Church these days.

But I will not abandon my Church and am always searching for spiritual direction beginning with a devoted prayer life. I feel guilty even in my bodily weakness when I fail something so simple as prayer.

 

[Redratfish]

I don’t think what you wrote was a rant. Many of us devout Catholics are faced with taking a very serious humble look at not just our lives but our very souls. Perhaps more so for me in someways because I’m faced with terminal illness and desire God’s grace to save my soul. I fear much that is happening in the Church these days.

But I will not abandon my Church and am always searching for spiritual direction beginning with a devoted prayer life. I feel guilty even in my bodily weakness when I fail something so simple as prayer.

I am torn on this issue. I recently found out that my own parents use contraception, and I was conceived while they were using birth control.
However, I know what the Church teaches, and I believe it.
In terms of why it is not preached, well it is because those who would listen already do not use it. My mother said that she uses it because before my father converted, they used it, and they never stopped, and would continue using it.

The only thing I feel can be done, and I realize this is extreme, is threaten excommunication. If people who support abortion can be excommunicated, then those who engage in an act that direcetly supports and encourages abortion should be too. Harsh? Yes. But it is better for those to be ousted than to corrupt more minds that it is ok.

 

[edwest2]

In my lifetime I have long wished and prayed that there will be someday out of the blue a Retraction of the Winnipeg Statement made by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

**
Vatican site reference to Humanae Vitae:** vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html

Winnipeg Statement: catholicinsight.com/online/church/humanae/article_960.shtml

Winnipeg Statement: lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004_docs/tragedyatwinnipeg.pdf

Many of the Woes in the Catholic Church resulting from the diminished if not obliterated concerns for the Sanctity of Life due to multi-millions if not billions of babies being aborted and the continual watering down of the Sanctity of Marriage owes itself to one of the greatest wounds in the Catholic Church where the encyclical Humanae Vitae was shot down and totally ignored by the CCCB in the Winnipeg Statement.

I can’t really say if in my lifetime if I’ll ever see the CCCB make a full retraction of the Winnipeg Statement. Have not enough devout Catholics prayed?

Never once in my lifetime in Canada have I heard a Canadian priest in the parishes I gone to across my country ever broach sentiments about Humanae Vitae from the Ambo.

Pourquoi/Why?

Is this much the same among Catholics in United States?

Father John Corapi (Winnipeg Statement: youtube.com/watch?v=jo0ElZMS7EY

Catholics in the United States understood Humanae Vitae, but prospective priests in seminaries in the 1970s were led to believe that the Church would change its teaching on contraception someday. I heard a priest on Catholic Radio in the US state that this follow your conscience teaching was not what Humanae Vitae meant. Catholics were to avoid artificial contraception entirely. But, with the rise of a counter-culture that no longer believed in marriage, or any authority, and found cohabitation to be OK, along with smoking marijuana, that became another community in our midst that lived out their beliefs. Freedom was their battle cry. They invited others to try their lifestyle and some did.

In the 1970s, Adult Bookstores, topless bars and strip clubs opened in our neighborhoods. No one asked for this but it created a sexualized atmosphere that continues to this day. Pope Paul VI warned of an increase in promiscuity. And legalizing abortion. Who was behind that? Catholics? In a few short years, prostitution was in our face and we were gradually taught, just as a preacher would preach, that a woman had the right to dispose of a baby on demand. All of this was surrounded by expensive lawyers to keep those religious types at bay. You should understand that those of us who were not part of the counter-culture at the time, expected our laws to conform to sound moral and practical reasoning. Abortion was marketed in 1972 as a “use in case of emergency only,” generally to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest.

I recently read a statement of regret by a priest who had signed a letter against Humanae Vitae at the time (1968). Things are turning around. Thank God for Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Joe_Kelley]

I think it was Father Pavone said that when we rejected Humanae Vitae (1968) we declared a death wish; and in November 2008 we fulfilled it. Note Psalm 95

O that today you would hearken to his voice! 8 Harden not your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, 9 when your fathers tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. 10 For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people who err in heart, and they do not regard my ways.” 11 Therefore I swore in my anger that they should not enter my rest.

 

[centurionguard]

Catholics in the United States understood Humanae Vitae, but prospective priests in seminaries in the 1970s were led to believe that the Church would change its teaching on contraception someday. I heard a priest on Catholic Radio in the US state that this follow your conscience teaching was not what Humanae Vitae meant. Catholics were to avoid artificial contraception entirely. But, with the rise of a counter-culture that no longer believed in marriage, or any authority, and found cohabitation to be OK, along with smoking marijuana, that became another community in our midst that lived out their beliefs. Freedom was their battle cry. They invited others to try their lifestyle and some did.

In the 1970s, Adult Bookstores, topless bars and strip clubs opened in our neighborhoods. No one asked for this but it created a sexualized atmosphere that continues to this day. Pope Paul VI warned of an increase in promiscuity. And legalizing abortion. Who was behind that? Catholics? In a few short years, prostitution was in our face and we were gradually taught, just as a preacher would preach, that a woman had the right to dispose of a baby on demand. All of this was surrounded by expensive lawyers to keep those religious types at bay. You should understand that those of us who were not part of the counter-culture at the time, expected our laws to conform to sound moral and practical reasoning. Abortion was marketed in 1972 as a “use in case of emergency only,” generally to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest.

I recently read a statement of regret by a priest who had signed a letter against Humanae Vitae at the time (1968). Things are turning around. Thank God for Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict.

Peace,
Ed

I concur with everything you wrote about here. I grew up in my youth through the later 1950’s and early adult life in the later 1970’s.

But I strongly feel that what happen as result of the 1968 Winnipeg Statement in Canada denouncing Pope Paul VI encyclical Humanae Vitae had a far greater out-reaching effect on liberal relativistic thinking effecting not only societal culture in Canada but within the entire western world and sadly infiltrating modes of liberal thinking into seminaries.

The fruits of the Winnipeg Statement in 1968 saw full legalization of Abortion in Canada in 1973. And to think that it was a Canadian Catholic Prime Minister who was instrumental of making abortion legal in the Supreme Court.

Where were the Canadian Bishops at this time? What huge voice were they making sitting on the laurels of the Winnipeg Statement five years earlier.

In 1968 the province of Quebec enjoyed one of greatest number of devout Catholics per-capita in North America. And present-time now!

Is it wrong of me today due to the greater population of Catholics in the United States to look for strength in orthodox American clergy?

I mentioned today in another post that the diminishing number of priests is increasingly growing very scarce and my having to resort to lay-led services on Sundays with No Sacrifice of the Mass. What’s happening to our bloody world? Indeed what’s happening to our beloved Catholic Church?

Its so true when said that we must all have to suffer for our Faith.

 

[edwest2]

In the US, we had the Land O’ Lakes Statement in 1967.

catholichistory.net/Events/LandOLakesStatement.htm

Imagine, if you will, trusting those in the mid-1960s who were saying “freedom” but who meant something else entirely. This was a coordinated attack on the Church.

My neighborhood in the early 1960s consisted mostly of good neighbors and good Catholics who were doing their best. Even as a boy, I understood that they cared. The Church was standing in the way of too many “freedoms.” The Supreme Court here found “penumbras and emanations” from our Constitution to allow for legal abortion. Somehow, our inalienable right to life was glossed over.

I see God as watching again as some of us, like the Israelites, forgot His good works. Who were lured by those who said, “We are free. Our life is better. Give it a try.”

We wanted to welcome the stranger and before we knew it, we had fallen into the ditch. Our trust had been abused.

The Anglicans, some Anglicans, are coming over to the Catholic Church. I suggest you contact your Bishop, or the nearest Bishop, and relate your situation to him.

God bless,
Ed

 

[centurionguard]

I think it was Father Pavone said that when we rejected Humanae Vitae (1968) we declared a death wish; and in November 2008 we fulfilled it. Note Psalm 95

**O that today you would hearken to his voice! 8 Harden not your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, 9 when your fathers tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. 10 For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people who err in heart, and they do not regard my ways.” 11 Therefore I swore in my anger that they should not enter my rest. **

This Psalm is shockingly so appropriate.

I’ve always loved Father Pavone. I remember seeing him as a beautiful speaker at a national Right To Life Association gathering in Ottawa, Canada in the mid 1990’s

 

[centurionguard]

In the US, we had the Land O’ Lakes Statement in 1967.

catholichistory.net/Events/LandOLakesStatement.htm

Imagine, if you will, trusting those in the mid-1960s who were saying “freedom” but who meant something else entirely. This was a coordinated attack on the Church.

My neighborhood in the early 1960s consisted mostly of good neighbors and good Catholics who were doing their best. Even as a boy, I understood that they cared. The Church was standing in the way of too many “freedoms.” The Supreme Court here found “penumbras and emanations” from our Constitution to allow for legal abortion. Somehow, our inalienable right to life was glossed over.

I see God as watching again as some of us, like the Israelites, forgot His good works. Who were lured by those who said, “We are free. Our life is better. Give it a try.”

We wanted to welcome the stranger and before we knew it, we had fallen into the ditch. Our trust had been abused.

The Anglicans, some Anglicans, are coming over to the Catholic Church. I suggest you contact your Bishop, or the nearest Bishop, and relate your situation to him.

God bless,
Ed

…

Given everything that was said in the Land O’ Lakes Statement which I no doubt effected how the Canadian Bishops adopted their strategies in making changes to how Catholic Children’s Catechism was taught in classrooms as it might have been taught in U.S. Catechism classes.

I was ten years old in 1967 and at that time Nuns in full habits were teaching catechism.
However; it wasn’t until the early 1970’s when I became more consciously aware of how catechism was being taught in different ways. Nuns too at that time by the mid 1970’s where removing their habits completely and most wore a corpse-less cross around their necks.

Seemingly; the burning-of-the-bra era of the later 1960’s infiltrated into the minds of some within the Church and the way Catholic catechetical teaching was imposed went down hill with it.

Peace
Chris

 

[white_sheep]

It’s difficult to broach such subject matter in front of children at mass.

 

[centurionguard]

It’s difficult to broach such subject matter in front of children at mass.

No disrespect; I would say that speaking/teaching about Humanae Vitae from the Ambo is difficult for the childish stiff-necked minds of Adults to accept.

Peace
Chris

 

[white_sheep]

No disrespect; I would say that speaking/teaching about Humanae Vitae from the Ambo is difficult for the childish stiff-necked minds of Adults to accept.

Peace
Chris

How do you explain it to a 6 year old?

 

[centurionguard]

How do you explain it to a 6 year old?

You don’t.

A 6 six year old is obviously too young let alone could barely understand virtually any homily being spoken from the Ambo.

Why ask?

One could teach Humanae Vitae to Adults in the congregation but its likely many might be inclined to ignore it anyway because the rigors of adhering to the encyclical are too stringent and burdensome and infringe on their own self-made moral liberties of freedom in individuals.

 

[larry85704]

So teach it. Do not depend on the priests to teach it, you teach it. Are you passionate about it enough to spend the time required to teach it in such a way that people will understand what you are talking about?

I remember learning about NFP and using it. I would never consider having an abortion, or since I am a guy, putting a woman in the position of even considering having an abortion. Is what the Church teaches good, Yes, without doubt. Do people teach what the Church teaches? You pretty much answered that with this thread.

I have a computer program that does online education. I am in the business of online education. If you are up to it, you can put an educational package on my web site for free. Is it a bunch of work, yes it is. But if you are really serious about teaching people and wiling to compile objective material where those in authority in the Church have addressed the things that concern you then here is your chance.

My courses are typically 400 to 500 pages long. I am not interested in mirroring this site. There are plenty of sites that provide people a way to vent, we don’t need another one. By the way, the content you would teach in this site would have to be reviewed and approved by the Church.

 

[centurionguard]

So teach it. Do not depend on the priests to teach it, you teach it. Are you passionate about it enough to spend the time required to teach it in such a way that people will understand what you are talking about?

I remember learning about NFP and using it. I would never consider having an abortion, or since I am a guy, putting a woman in the position of even considering having an abortion. Is what the Church teaches good, Yes, without doubt. Do people teach what the Church teaches? You pretty much answered that with this thread.

I have a computer program that does online education. I am in the business of online education. If you are up to it, you can put an educational package on my web site for free. Is it a bunch of work, yes it is. But if you are really serious about teaching people and wiling to compile objective material where those in authority in the Church have addressed the things that concern you then here is your chance.

My courses are typically 400 to 500 pages long. I am not interested in mirroring this site. There are plenty of sites that provide people a way to vent, we don’t need another one. By the way, the content you would teach in this site would have to be reviewed and approved by the Church.

…

What’s really to teach when all Catholics have to do is read Pope Paul VI encyclical Humanae Vitae on the Sanctity of Human Life
vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html

and apply it to their Moral Way of Living encompassing proper Sexual Behavior

as defined by the laws of Catholic Church and God’s Ten Commandments.

You said;

Do not depend on the priests to teach it

Why not? Is it because its 43 years too late?

 

[larry85704]

Well, I guess it is easy to complain. Harder to try and fix it. Are you a complainer or a fixer? Do you think the priests could use a little help? Or how about a way to stand up and personally tell the world you are a Catholic and here is what I believe. Sure we can read stuff, but people don’t.

It is better to feel empowered to do what is right and make the world a better place than to notice how bad it is.

 

[centurionguard]

Well, I guess it is easy to complain. Harder to try and fix it. Are you a complainer or a fixer? Do you think the priests could use a little help? Or how about a way to stand up and personally tell the world you are a Catholic and here is what I believe. Sure we can read stuff, but people don’t.

It is better to feel empowered to do what is right and make the world a better place than to notice how bad it is.

I guess it is easy to complain. Harder to try and fix it. Are you a complainer or a fixer?

Please don’t judge me friend by advocating me as a complainer?

The final judgment of those who have refused to teach and adhere to the letter of Humanae Vitae rest squarely on both the clergy and the laity. Many in the Church have shared the burden of sin for ignoring Pope Paul VI’s encyclical.

The very blood of the innocent in the billions of aborted babies cries out to God for righteous vengeance, like rain the falls on both the good and the bad.

Do not think that God will ignore this on the Great Day of Tribulation.