It’s good to see another international conference in Rome coming up on the 40th annversary of Humanae Vitae, entitled "Humanae Vitae, A Topical and Prophetical (sic) Encyclical". It is badly needed, particularly for countries like Britain.This international congress is important for Catholics and for everybody. It's especially important for the pro-life movement. As I have mentioned before on this blog, the prophecy of Pope Paul VI regarding artificial birth control has been fulfilled in ways that even he did not predict. He wrote:
"Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone.” (Humanae Vitae 17)
Nowadays in Britain and elsewhere, the Government is "imposing" the use of birth control, including abortion, on families; and the Catholic Church authorities in England and Wales are co-operating with the government in imposing it in England - by welcoming into its schools Connexions whose job it is to make abortion and contraception available to children, without parental knowledge or consent, a point I made last year in an interview with Zenit.
As a father and a grandfather and as a Catholic I can say, without reservation, this is the worst thing that's happened since I got involved in the pro-life fight 34 years ago. By what right do Government and Church authorities rob parents of their God-given right to protect their children from such grave moral harm and from such serious risks to their health? By what right do their rob parents of the right to protect their grandchildren from being aborted?
The "lectio magistralis" is being given by Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, archbishop of Bologna (pictured above). Cardinal Caffara is a contributing author to Why Humanae Vitae Was Right, edited by Janet E. Smith, which reproduced, as an article, his keynote address for a conference held in Rome to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Humanae Vitae. In her introduction to his article, Janet E. Smith writes: "He demonstrates that the use of contraceptives violates the dignity of man since it entails a rejection of the goodness of being...".
Elsewhere, Cardinal Caffara writes about the "intrinsic illicitness" of in-vitro fertilisation since it "establishes between the one performing the fertilisation and the one to be born a relationship of 'production of an object'".
The international congress is also being addressed by Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, the newly appointed president of the Pontifical Council for the Family.
