In my last post I talked about how some people are trying to play God instead of letting God be God. I took some time today to read Humanae Vitae, an encyclical written by Pope Paul VI in 1968. There are two paragraphs that in reading them now were so prophetic.
I don’t remember what was talked about when this came out, I was only 12 and what the Pope had to say about anything was the furthest thing from my mind. I understand now that it was pretty controversial. I am guessing this was probably the beginning of when many began to leave the Catholic Church, or at least the start of Catholics thinking they knew better than the Church. This encyclical was a result of the rise of birth control use in our society and why the Church believed it to be wrong.
Let’s take a look at the two paragraphs I think were the most prophetic. All three are in the section entitled “”Grave Consequences of Methods of Artificial Birth Control”.
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 his respected and beloved companion.- On Human Life: Humanae Vitae
I think we can all agree that there is a serious problem in the world today with the road having been “opened up towards conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality”. Watch daytime television, shows like Jerry Springer, Maury and Bill Cunningham to get a birds eye view of what has happened. Look around and it isn’t too hard to see how man has lost respect for women and has “come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer 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 more 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.
Pope Paul predicted exactly what is happening around the world where governments are imposing restrictions on how many children one couple can have. Even the United States government, through the United Nations advocates population control for developing nations.
Take a hard look around and see if we as a society are any better off now then we were before 1968. We have unwed mothers, deadbeat dads, abortions that are through the roof, poverty, pornography, all of these things are the real war on woman
And somewhere, looking out from whatever hole he happens to be hiding in, Satan is laughing at all of us.
The Wayward Catholic 