Cardinal Mueller underscored that "secularization dupes men, depriving them of God," saying secularization "does not imply any step forward in the path toward perfection. It is rather an anthropological deficit, as it abandons men to despair and uselessness. The paradigm of secularization is nihilism."
Humanae Vitae, the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith maintained, "has a positive message, as it looks at men in their entirety."
The book by Galuska contains a report drafted by a group of scholars in Krakow around Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, constituting Wojtyla's participation in Paul VI's contraception study commission. The cardinal sent the report because he was not able to get a visa from the Soviet regime and personally present it in Rome.
More importantly, the book publishes a letter Cardinal Wojtyla addressed to Paul VI in 1969. The letter praised the encyclical, noted that there were resistances and asked for a papal instruction to reiterate the message of Humanae Vitae.
The book's presentation was the occasion to debunk some "fake news" about the encyclical.
Amidst a media campaign trying to dilute Humanae Vitae's teaching, Cardinal Wojtyla's 1969 letter was often characterized as an attempt to make the interpretation of the encyclical more rigid by asking Pope Paul VI to proclaim that its teaching was a dogmatic and infallible proclamation.
Msgr. Livio Melina, former president of the Pontifical Institute John Paul II for Studies on Marriage and Family, stressed that "saying that Cardinal Wojtyla asked for an instruction to reiterate the infallibility of the encyclical is just fake news."
Instead, Melina said, that letter asked the Pope to explain that what Humanae Vitae said was part of the Church's ordinary universal magisterium, and that the Church's ordinary and universal magisterium is infallible.
Msgr. Melina explained that "the letter must be read carefully. Cardinal Wojtyla did not ask Paul VI to declare that the encyclical is infallible. He just asked to reiterate that the teachings in it are part of the Church's ordinary [universal] magisterium. And that magisterium is infallible."
Andrea Gagliarducci is an Italian journalist for Catholic News Agency and Vatican analyst for ACI Stampa. He is a contributor to the National Catholic Register.