In another interesting speech today, to participants of a seminary promoted by the Pontifical Institute John Paul II for the study of Marriage and Family of the Pontifical Lateran University, the Pope had some relevant words regarding the most important encyclical of Paul VI, whose very foundations were recently attacked by Eminent clerics:
"The idea of 'teaching how to love' followed the young priest Karol Wojtyla and, afterwards, motivated him when, as a young bishop, he faced the difficult moments which followed the publication of the prophetic and always current Encyclical of my Predecessor Paul VI, Humanae vitae".
Yes, the teaching of Casti Connubii and Humanae Vitae is perennial, it is always "up-to-date". Let us remember one of Humanae Vitae's most important passages:
Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to promote a greater good, it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it—in other words, to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general.
