Editing Humanae vitae (section)

==Legacy==
Polls have shown that many self-identified Catholics use artificial means of contraception, and that very few use natural family planning.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/contraceptive-use-united-states|title=Contraceptive Use in the United States|date=2004-08-04|website=Guttmacher Institute|language=en|access-date=2019-11-30}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://thinkprogress.org/birth-control-goes-against-catholicisms-teachings-but-most-catholics-use-it-anyway-d22f2da560a1/|title=Birth Control Goes Against Catholicism's Teachings, But Most Catholics Use It Anyway|website=[[ThinkProgress]]|date=4 August 2015 |language=en-US|access-date=2019-11-30}}</ref> However, [[John L. Allen Jr.]] wrote in 2008: "Three decades of bishops' appointments by John Paul II and Benedict XVI, both unambiguously committed to {{lang|la|Humanae Vitae}}, mean that senior leaders in Catholicism these days are far less inclined than they were in 1968 to distance themselves from the ban on birth control, or to soft-pedal it. Some Catholic bishops have brought out documents of their own defending {{lang|la|Humanae Vitae}}."<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/opinion/27allen.html | work=New York Times | title=The Pope vs. the Pill | date=27 July 2008 | access-date=19 January 2012 | first1=John | last1=Allen}}</ref> Developments in [[fertility awareness]] since the 1960s<ref>For example, one Natural Birth Control website (Justisse) quotes the ''British Medical Journal'' (Volume 307, 2003): "According to the World Health Organization, 93% of women everywhere can identify the symptoms which distinguish adequately between the fertile and the infertile phases of the [menstrual] cycle... [Using fertility awareness for reproductive planning] is inexpensive, highly effective, without side effects and may be particularly acceptable to and efficacious among [certain] people." {{cite web|title=World Health Organization Endorses Fertility Awareness|publisher=Justisse|url=http://www.justisse.ca/new/index.asp|access-date=27 March 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061214225809/http://www.justisse.ca/new/index.asp |archive-date=14 December 2006}}</ref> have also given rise to natural family planning organizations such as the Billings Ovulation Method, [[Couple to Couple League]] and the [[Creighton Model FertilityCare System]], which actively provide formal instruction on the use and reliability of natural methods of birth control.

===Pope John Paul I===
[[Albino Luciani]]'s views on {{lang|la|Humanae vitae}} have been debated.<ref>Kay Withers, "Pope John Paul I and Birth Control", ''America'', 24 March 1979, pp. 233-34.</ref> Journalist [[John L. Allen Jr.]] claims that "it's virtually certain that John Paul I would not have reversed Paul VI's teaching, particularly since he was no doctrinal radical. Moreover, as Patriarch in [[Venice]] some had seen a hardening of his stance on social issues as the years went by." According to Allen, "it is reasonable to assume that John Paul I would not have insisted upon the negative judgment in {{lang|la|Humanae Vitae}} as aggressively and publicly as John Paul II did, and probably would not have treated it as a quasi-infallible teaching. It would have remained a more 'open' question".<ref>[http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/word/word090503.htm ''National Catholic Reporter'']</ref><ref>Kay Withers, "Pope John Paul I and Birth Control", ''America'', 24 March 1979, pgs. 233-4</ref> Other sources take a different view and note that during his time as Patriarch of Venice that "Luciani was intransigent with his upholding of the teaching of the Church and severe with those, through intellectual pride and disobedience paid no attention to the Church's prohibition of contraception", though while not condoning the sin, he was tolerant of those who sincerely tried and failed to live up to the Church's teaching. Raymond and Lauretta's book ''The Smiling Pope, The Life & Teaching of John Paul I'' states that "if some people think that his compassion and gentleness in this respect implies he was against {{lang|la|Humanae Vitae}} one can only infer it was wishful thinking on their part and an attempt to find an ally in favor of artificial contraception."<ref>Raymond and Lauretta, ''The Smiling Pope, The Life & Teaching of John Paul I''. Our Sunday Visitor Press: 2004</ref>

===Pope John Paul II===
{{For|additional details|Humanae vitae and Poland}}
After he became pope in 1978, [[John Paul II]] continued on the [[Catholic Theology of the Body]] of his predecessors with a series of lectures, entitled ''[[Theology of the Body]]'', in which he talked about an "original unity between man and women",<ref>{{cite book|first=George|last=Weigel|title=Witness to hope, The biography of Pope John Paul II|location=New York|year=2005|page=336}}</ref> purity of heart (on the [[Sermon on the Mount]]), [[marriage]] and [[celibacy]] and reflections on {{lang|la|Humanae vitae}}, focusing largely on responsible parenthood and marital chastity.<ref>Weigel, pgs. 336-43</ref>

In 1981, the Pope's Apostolic exhortation, {{lang|la|[[Familiaris consortio]]}}, restated the Church's opposition to artificial birth control stated previously in {{lang|la|Humanae vitae}}.

John Paul II readdressed some of the same issues in his 1993 encyclical {{lang|la|[[Veritatis Splendor|Veritatis splendor]]}}. He reaffirmed much of {{lang|la|Humanae vitae}}, and specifically described the practice of artificial contraception as an act not permitted by Catholic teaching in any circumstances. The same encyclical also clarifies the use of conscience in arriving at moral decisions, including in the use of contraception. However, John Paul also said, "It is not right then to regard the moral conscience of the individual and the magisterium of the Church as two contenders, as two realities in conflict. The authority which the magisterium enjoys by the will of Christ exists so that the moral conscience can attain the truth with security and remain in it." John Paul quoted {{lang|la|Humanae vitae}} as a compassionate encyclical, "Christ has come not to judge the world but to save it, and while he was uncompromisingly stern towards sin, he was patient and rich in mercy towards sinners".<ref>''Veritatis Splendor'', pg. 95; see ''Humanae vitae'', no. 29</ref>

Pope John Paul's 1995 encyclical {{lang|la|[[Evangelium vitae]]}} ('The Gospel of Life') affirmed the Church's position on contraception and multiple topics related to the [[culture of life]].

===Pope Benedict XVI===
On 12 May 2008, [[Benedict XVI]] accepted an invitation to talk to participants in the International Congress organized by the [[Pontifical Lateran University]] on the 40th anniversary of {{lang|la|Humanae vitae}}. He put the encyclical in the broader view of love in a global context, a topic he called "so controversial, yet so crucial for humanity's future." {{lang|la|Humanae vitae}} became "a [[sign of contradiction]] but also of continuity of the Church's doctrine and tradition... What was true yesterday is true also today."<ref>Benedict XVI, international congress organized by the Pontifical Lateran University on the 40th anniversary of the encyclical ''Humanae vitae'', 12 May 2008</ref> The Church continues to reflect "in an ever new and deeper way on the fundamental principles that concern marriage and procreation." The key message of {{lang|la|Humanae vitae}} is love. Benedict states, that the fullness of a person is achieved by a unity of soul and body, but neither spirit nor body alone can love, only the two together. If this unity is broken, if only the body is satisfied, love becomes a commodity.<ref>''Deus Caritas Est,'' no. 11</ref>

===Pope Francis===
{{See also|Theology of Pope Francis#Sexual morality as Good News}}
On 16 January 2015, Pope Francis said to a meeting with families in Manila, insisting on the need to protect the family: "The family is{{nbsp}}[...] threatened by growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage, by relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by a lack of openness to life. I think of Blessed Paul VI. At a time when the problem of population growth was being raised, he had the courage to defend openness to life in families. He knew the difficulties that are there in every family, and so in his Encyclical he was very merciful towards particular cases, and he asked confessors to be very merciful and understanding in dealing with particular cases. But he also had a broader vision: he looked at the peoples of the earth and he saw this threat of the destruction of the family through the privation of children [original Spanish: {{lang|es|destrucción de la familia por la privación de los hijos}}]. Paul VI was courageous; he was a good pastor and he warned his flock of the wolves who were coming."<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/es/speeches/2015/january/documents/papa-francesco_20150116_srilanka-filippine-incontro-famiglie.html |title = Sri Lanka - Filipinas: Encuentro con las familias en el Mall of Asia Arena (Manila, 16 de enero de 2015) &#124; Francisco}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Nidoy |first=Raul |date=2015-01-26 |title=The Pope's most insistent message |url=https://opinion.inquirer.net/82016/the-popes-most-insistent-message |access-date= |newspaper=[[Philippine Daily Inquirer]] |language=en}}</ref>

A year before, on 1 May 2014, [[Pope Francis]], in an interview given to Italian newspaper {{lang|it|[[Corriere della Sera]]}}, expressed his opinion and praise for {{lang|la|Humanae vitae}}: "Everything depends on how {{lang|la|Humanae vitae}} is interpreted. Paul VI himself, in the end, urged confessors to be very merciful and pay attention to concrete situations. But his genius was prophetic, he had the courage to take a stand against the majority, to defend moral discipline, to exercise a cultural restraint, to oppose present and future [[Malthusianism#Modern formulation|neo-Malthusianism]]. The question is not of changing doctrine, but of digging deep and making sure that pastoral care takes into account situations and what it is possible for persons to do."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350783bdc4.html?eng=y|title=Francis, the Pope of "Humanae Vitae"|website=chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it|access-date=2019-11-30}}</ref>