The 14th of April 2018, the Paulines of Johannesburg had a conference in their hall in order to see a practical question raised after the two recent Synods on the Family and especially after Amoris Laetitia issued by pope Francis in March 2016, is if and maybe how the teaching of the Catholic Church on responsible parenthood has changed. In dealing with this question, an important step is to inquire into what knowledge and understanding is around in the Catholic community regarding the teachings on responsible parenthood, with a focus on the 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae tradendae (The transmission of human life) issued by pope Paul VI, now 50 years ago.
In order to understand Amoris Laetitia on this, the lecture will proceed in three parts. The first part will briefly offer an historical background, the second looks into key notions of the argumentation proposed by Humanae vitae tradendae and the final part will try to answer the practical question mentioned above which is buzzing around in pastoral but also in theological academic areas.
The conference was offered by Prof Jan Jans, STD, Associate Professor of Ethics at Tilburg University, the Netherlands.
