432 / 665
404 • Part III. Christian Morality: The Faith Lived
a series of reforms and the renewal of the liturgy. In 1970, he authorized
the publication of a new
Roman Missal
. He fostered dialogue with other
churches and ecclesial communities. He worked diligently for peace,
even visiting the headquarters of the United Nations in New York in 1964 to
deliver an urgent appeal against war.
Throughout his pontificate, Paul VI emphasized the importance
of the family for the Church and society. In his apostolic exhortation
On Evangelization in the Modern World
(
Evangelii Nuntiandi
) of 1975,
he wrote, “The family, just like the Church, must always be regarded as
a center to which the Gospel must be brought and from which it
must be proclaimed. Therefore in a family which is conscious of this
role all the members of the family are evangelizers and are themselves
evangelized” (no. 71).
Because of controversy in the Church surrounding the morality of arti-
ficial contraception, he issued his encyclical
On the Regulation of Birth
(
Humanae Vitae
; HV) in July of 1968. He reaffirmed the teaching of the
Church that artificial contraception is gravely immoral because it con-
travenes God’s will for the conjugal act, which unites the spouses in their
love and must also be open to the creation of new life. He warned of the
consequences for the moral tenor of society that would come from ignor-
ing God’s plan. He recognized the difficulties that married couples might
have in following this teaching, but he encouraged them to have con-
stant recourse to God’s grace through the Sacrament of Penance and
Reconciliation and the Sacrament of the Eucharist.
Pope Paul VI was a courageous shepherd for the renewal of the
Church and the defense of her teaching. The cause for his beatifica-
tion was initiated in 1993. Pope Paul VI’s clear teaching on family, mar-
riage, and moral issues such as artificial contraception shows him to be a
most important figure in fostering the values and virtues embodied in the
Sixth Commandment.
•
PRACTICE MARITAL FIDELITY
God created human beings as male and female. In so doing, he gave
equal dignity to both man and woman. In his plan, men and women
should respect and accept their sexual identity. God created both the