Omaha, Nebraska

Summer, 1993

Humanae Vitae Conference

We gathered in Omaha, that summer of 1993, to celebrate 25 years of Humanae Vitae. There were 1,500 of us from 29 countries, a veritable small village of doctors, historians, nurses, nursing mothers, priests, scientists, nuns, young married couples, single people, bishops, Lutherans, a cardinal, politicians, philosophers, theologians, publishers — even an ex-abortionist.

One evening, after a day of talks and small-group sessions, we were bussed to an off-site auditorium, one large enough to hold us all.

The lights dimmed, the murmuring ceased, and the tall theater curtain parted just enough to reveal 16-year old Gianna Jessen, center-stage, beautiful in a long black velvet gown. And Gianna started to sing.

Gianna, with the voice of an angel, had us in the palm of her hand.

When she was finished, when the thunderous applause was done, the curtain closed.

We never saw her halting steps as she left the stage.

We would not have…

One of the reasons Humanae Vitae was resisted in 1968 is that women’s reproductive cycles were far less understood than today. The only natural method available then, the much derided rhythm method of spacing children, was a one-size-fits-all template that didn’t take into account the differences between one woman and another or one woman from month to month.

This is why Pope Paul VI, in writing Humanae Vitae, made an appeal to scientists:

Our next appeal is to men of science. These can “considerably advance the welfare of marriage and the family and also peace of conscience, if by pooling their efforts they strive to elucidate more thoroughly the conditions favorable to a proper regulation of births.” (28) It is supremely desirable, and this was also the mind of Pius XII, that medical science should by the study of natural rhythms succeed in determining a sufficiently secure basis for the chaste limitation of…

Posted earlier this week, Jennifer Fulwiler’s America magazine article,  A Sexual Revolution: One woman’s journey from pro-choice atheist to pro-life Catholic, hinted at Humanae Vitae :

Given my [secular] background, the Catholic idea that we are always to treat the sexual act with awe and respect, so much so that we should simply abstain if we are opposed to its life-giving potential, was a revolutionary message…..

In fact, Humane Vitae, promulgated 40 years ago, was not revolutionary. It was consistent with Christian tradition and teaching, Catholic and Protestant, going back 2000 years. What was revolutionary was the public reaction to Humane Vitae by various Catholics — and others –who demanded the teaching not apply to them.

There was so much outcry, in fact, that few would have forseen a new, vigorous, growing defense of Humane Vitae 40 years later. Thirty-one year old Jennifer Fulwiler is but one of many today who understand that Pope Paul VI was not only right…