Cardinal Muller speaks in his book, titled The Cardinal Muller Report, about : Humanae Vitae et Contraception
The encyclical Humanae vitae had many difficulties in its reception,as much for its underlying anthropology— especially
regarding its proposal on the experience of love and sexuality—as for its clarification of the intrinsic morality of the methods of birth control. The indiscriminate attacks to which it was subject from the outset caused it to be marginalized and forgotten, despite its
richness in inventively and prophetically posing the reality of love, of marriage, and of the beauty of married life.
Today, almost fifty years later, we see much more clearly that
Pope Paul VI was right in everything that at the time he had the courage to make clear. Ahead of his time, this humanist pope had the courage to offer this document to the Church and to society, denouncing with an accurate analysis what ended up happening. Are we not, indeed, witnessing a pandemic of divorce? Have we not, just as unmistakably, turned sex into a trivial reality devoid of feeling? And is it not as patently clear today that Western societies, having radically
separated the unitive function from that of procreation, have a true problem in their birthrate? The situation is one of authentic demographic involution that carries grave consequences, considered both synchronically and
diachronically, if we examine the present moment and the foreseeable possibilities for the near future.
But the problem, I repeat, is not only demographic but rather, above all,
one of meaning: I mean the question of the identity and vitality of marriage. Perhaps five decades
ago it was not so evident, since the institution of the family was still strong: in fact, it was not yet foreseen that there could be so
manybroken marriages in our own families, with so many
children who could not enjoy a father and a mother living under the same roof or so many adolescents initiating themselves at a young age in a life of frivolous sex. Yes, we are much more able today to grasp the negative impact of a mistaken conception of sex, valued only for the gratification it brings and not for the gift that it makes possible. We understand better today the perverse effects of artificial birth control, as a simple means toward the worry-free enjoyment of sex, without wanting to see the consequences
for physical, psychological, and spiritual health.
Moral problems demand moral solutions. We must humanize sexuality, which is at the service of the personal union of spouses, making it possible for each to be a gift to the other and not only a means for satisfying their desire. We must explain
to new spouses the goodness, for example, of natural methods that, based on abstinence from sexual contact during the fertile days, foster dialogue, mutual respect, and understanding in the couple.
