Humanae Vitae Continues to Challenge Us To Love, Trust, and Sacrifice, by Carl E. Olson

Editor’s note: This essay was posted originally, in slightly different form, on July 25, 2012, to mark the 44th anniversary of Humanae Vitae. 

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The encyclical, Humanae Vitae, was promulgated 55 years ago, on July 25, 1968. The word often used to describe Pope Paul VI’s encyclical is “prophetic”. It is one of those rather rare cases in which such a daunting, loaded, and strong adjective is exactly on the mark. Being prophetic, in the biblical and apostolic tradition, involves far more than some sort of foretelling of future events. It is, first, a forth-telling of truth, a proclamation of the Word of God. As such, it requires courage and a willingness to be rejected, mocked, and even vilified.

All of that happened to Paul VI, and the case can be made (and has been made many times over) that Humanae Vitae and the immediate response to it—harsh, mocking, dismissive, angry—marked a pivotal moment in the Church’s life in the modern era in the West. …