Keywords
the ethics of marital life
theology of the body
anthropology
procreation
How to Cite
Abstract
Since the publication of the encyclical "Humanae vitae" by Paul VI in 1968, a heated discussion has been taking place around this document. It comes alive in a particularly intense way on the occasion of the subsequent anniversaries of the publication of the document. Subsequent decades showed a number of problems related not only to the ethics of marital life and sexual ethics, but also to the concept of conscience or recognition or rejection of the seriousness of the Church's Magisterium. Recent months have brought further opinions of antagonists and protagonists of this document.
Among opponents or critics of the encyclical, there are views questioning the teaching that contraception is intrinsically evil. This, in consequence, means accepting the thesis that there are no intrinsically evil acts at all. What is more, it should be noted that every human action is determined in its moral nature only by the proportion between its good and bad effects.
In confrontation with these views, the article presents an outline of the anthropological and theological truth underlying "Humanae vitae" which was analysed with insight by St. John Paul II. This allows for the extraction of several basic theses relating to the theological vision of marriage and parenthood: 1) to read the truth about marriage and parenthood, it is necessary to fully recognize the truth about the dignity of the human person, 2) the person realizes fully in the reality of the gift that creates interpersonal communion with the participation of the human body, 3) communion and endowment made with the help of the "sign" of the body are realized in interpersonal conjugal love, 4) the special (though not the only) act of conjugal love is a sexual act, 5) marital logic of being a mutual gift is specific and this is inseparability of the bond between the inter-marital gift (between spouses) and the non-marital gift (between parents and children). Ultimately, this leads to the thought of St. Pope John Paul II, ordering to combine the order of the marriage act with the creative act "the genealogy of the person is inscribed in the very biology of generation".
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