Sex is Sacred

Happy 50th Anniversary of the prophetic encyclical of Paul VI!

My Godfather once said, "If love were impossible, the Lord would not have commanded it. If it were easy, the Lord would not have had to command it." Having recourse to infertile phases of a cycle is neither impossible nor easy, but it is the only true expression of love for a husband and wife who have discerned it vital to their family to postpone pregnancy.

Educate yourself, and join the Culture of Life:

https://youtu.be/sGs4uz-DYA0

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/07/affirming-and-celebrating-humanae-vitae

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/life-giving-love-nfp-advances-half-century-after-humanae-vitae

http://bigpulpit.com/2018/07/25/humanae-vitae/

Attributing to conscience an autonomy that would give it not only a normative but also a legislative role, would be contrary to the foundations of both natural and revealed ethics. Such autonomy would be tantamount to accepting subjectivism and relativism in morality. Now, subjectivism and relativism are in contradiction with true morality, especially with Christian morality, simply because these amount to the denial of objective moral good and evil and, consequently, of the specific function of conscience. It is, in fact, up to conscience to determine good and evil and to discern it according to the objective moral law. -St.JPII
https://www.lifesitenews.com/all/yesterday#article-never-before-published-letter-of-cardinal-wojtya-to-paul-vi-on-humanae-vita

I thank Your Holiness for the clear and decisive words You have spoken in the recent encyclical, “Humanae Vitae”, and I reaffirm my own faith and my unconditional obedience to Your inspired directives. -Padre Pio

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/the-bitter-pill-of-dissent-from-humanae-vitae-the-catholic-community-swallo

NFP is also a very reliable and vastly less expensive means to achieve pregnancy, whereas IVF is neither reliable nor affordable.

By separating conception from the couple’s marital embrace, both contraception and IVF have had grave consequences. Happily, in the last 50 years there has been great progress in finding alternatives. Humanae Vitae led to significant advances in the realm natural family planning. This has in turn generated a new approach to infertility. NaPro technology combines fertility awareness with diagnosis and treatment of the underlying causes of infertility. It does not replace or circumvent the marital act but works by increasing the chances of sexual union being fertile. NaPro even has a comparable rate of effectiveness to IVF, though it should be noted that neither IVF nor NaPro resolves infertility in most couples who seek it. Nonetheless, the NaPro journey is thought to be more helpful in allowing couples to come to terms with their infertility, whereas repeated failure at IVF can add to a couple’s distress.
http://catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2018/07/25/contraception-and-ivf-have-damaged-our-society-humanae-vitae-offers/

http://www.cmfblog.org.uk/2018/07/24/a-40th-birthday-for-ivf/ 

But the historical evidence indicates that Paul VI did not set up this commission for the purpose of blindly following its recommendations. The late moral theologian Germain Grisez, who worked alongside one of the few commission members who upheld the traditional teaching on contraception, says Paul VI specifically sought out dissident voices. According to Grisez, Paul “wanted to see what kind of case they could make for that view. He was not at all imagining that he could delegate to a committee the power to decide what the Church’s teaching is going to be.” 
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-myth-of-the-birth-control-commission

http://blog.newadvent.org/2018/07/rare-footage-of-pope-paul-vi-speaking.html

In Humanae Vitae Pope Paul made some positive predictions as well. He acknowledged that spouses might have difficulty in acquiring the self-discipline necessary to practice the methods of family planning that require periodic abstinence. But he taught that self-discipline was possible, especially with the help of sacramental grace. In Section 21, he remarked:
....the discipline which is proper to the purity of married couples, far from harming conjugal love, rather confers on it a higher human value. It demands continual effort yet, thanks to its beneficent influence, husband and wife fully develop their personalities, being enriched with spiritual values. Such discipline bestows upon family life fruits of serenity and peace; and facilitates the solution of other problems; it favors attention for one's partner, helps both parties to drive out selfishness, the enemy of true love, and deepens their sense of responsibility.
While this passage of Humanae Vitae is rarely studied, Pope John Paul II is one commentator who recognizes the depth of its wisdom. It plays the central role in his reflections on Humanae Vitae; he focuses on the importance of "self-mastery" for the proper use of sexuality, and explains the meaning of the human body and the human person as these bear upon sexuality.
https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/264/popepaul.htm