Pope states Church’s opposition to artificial birth control methods

(October 3, 2008) Pope Benedict XVI on Friday once more underscored the Catholic Church’s opposition to artificial birth control methods, and urged Catholics around the world to make efforts in understanding the beauty of conjugal love from the heart. The Pope said this in a message to a 2-day international congress in Rome marking 40 years of ‘Humanae Vitae’, Pope Paul VI’s landmark encyclical on abortion, contraception and other issues dealing with human life and sexuality. The Oct. 3-4 congress was organized by the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family and the Sacred Heart Catholic University based in Rome.
Excluding procreation of children from conjugal love, the Pope said, would mean denying the intimate truth of the love between married couples with which they communicate the love of God. 40 years after the publication of the landmark encyclical, he noted, we can better understand why children are no more seen as the goal of human plan but as an authentic gift to be welcomed with responsible generosity towards God, the source of human life. However, when couples feel the need to space out the birth of their children or even of not having them, the knowledge of the natural fertility rhythms of the woman becomes important, the Pope recommending natural family planning methods. Pope Benedict said that the Church’s family and marriage pastoral efforts should help couples orientate themselves in the heart towards the marvellous plan that God has written in the human body, helping them to understand what it means to grow in responsible maturity and freedom.