Humanae Vitae Conference Proclaims, Defends Life Ethics
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Greg and Julie Anderson discuss how practicing natural family planning methods enhances married life at Sacred Heart's conference on Humanae Vitae, September 20. |
Sacred Heart presented a one-day conference to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae (On Human Life) and to explore its important themes. The conference, entitled "Co-creating with God: Humanae Vitae Today," was held on Saturday, September 20, at the seminary, and drew a crowd of 250 attendees.
The conference's title is taken from the Church's belief, as expressed in Humanae Vitae, that spouses "share with God the task of procreating and educating new living beings."
The conference featured speakers with national reputations for advocating and defending the Catholic position on the transmission of human life:
- Dr. Janet E. Smith, Fr. Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart
- Dr. Pia de Solenni, an ethicist and moral theologian
- Dr. Patrick Fagan, director of the Center for Family and Religion at the Family Research Council
- Greg and Julie Anderson, founders of an apostolate dedicated to the enrichment of marriage and family life
- Maria Fedoryka, assistant professor of philosophy at Ave Maria University, Naples, Florida, graciously filled in for her faculty colleague, Dr. Michael Waldstein, an expert of the Theology of the Body, who unexpectedly was unable to give his presentation.
Most Rev. Robert J. Carlson, bishop of the Diocese of Saginaw, was the main celebrant of the Mass and gave the after dinner presentation. He has written powerfully on the need for Catholics to be faithful to the Church's teaching on the transmission of human life. Popular pastor Fr. John Ricardo of Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish, Plymouth, Michigan, emceed the event.
Pope Paul VI released Humanae Vitae in 1968 amidst the so-called "sexual revolution" to clarify the Roman Catholic Church's position on the sacredness of marriage and the ethical transmission of human life. The document is particularly remembered for reaffirming the Church's prohibition on the use of contraception by Catholic married couples. Humane Vitae advocates natural methods of spacing the birth of children (natural family planning or NFP), and warns—some say "prophetically"—of the serious social consequences that would result from the spread of contraceptive birth control methods.
October 2008
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