Jun 17, 2008 / 15:00 pm
Father Thomas J. Euteneuer, STL, president of Human Life International, has invited every Catholic bishop, priest, deacon, and seminarian in the world to sign a “pledge of assent” affirming their adherence to Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae.
Writing in a press statement, Father Euteneuer said the goal of the pledge was to form a new “generation of assent” to overcome what he called “a whole generation of silence and dissent” that followed the encyclical, which discussed the nature of human sexuality and reaffirmed the Church’s teaching on artificial birth control.
According to HLI’s president, “The generation between 1968 and the present has largely been a generation of dissent. But we see great signs of hope that a younger generation of Catholics who grew up amid the wreckage wrought by not heeding Pope Paul’s warnings is coming of age and recognize dissent from Humanae Vitae and the Magisterium in general for the folly that it is.”
“It is our desire and purpose to tell the world that we will not be silent about this encyclical or its teaching,” Father Euteneuer said. “Nor will we stand by idly when Pope Paul VI’s predictions of cultural and spiritual degradation are manifesting themselves around us in broken marriages, devastated families and pernicious immorality.”