NFP WEEK: Contraception Will Always Be Intrinsically Evil: A Look at the Development of Doctrine, by Susanna Spencer

As we mark National NFP Week, there have been confusing ideas coming from the Pontifical Academy of Life that seem to imply that the Church’s teaching on contraception can “develop” to allow the use of artificial contraception.

By Susanna Spencer, EWTN News, July 25, 2022

This week, 54 years ago, on July 25, 1968, Pope St. Paul VI released the encyclical Humanae Vitae, confirming the Church’s teaching that contraception, whether through sterilization of the man or woman in any act before, during, or after the conjugal act to prevent procreation is morally evil and violates the “unitive and procreative” goods “inherent to the marriage act.” Further, he allowed for couples who have reasonable motives for avoiding having another child to exclusively use the infertile periods of the wife’s cycle, what is now commonly called natural family planning or NFP. This teaching was received in varying ways, with many laypeople and priests choosing to ignore this in favor of the world’s acceptance of birth control. Those obedient to the truth worked hard to defend it, such as philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand, who explained: …