by our Rome correspondent
POPE John Paul this week offered a preview of the contents of his planned encyclical on moral questions, expected to he the most important papal statement in this area since Paul VI's Humanae vitae.
The Pope was speaking to participants in a training course for consultants on natural family planning methods (NFP), and his address indicated that there would be no relaxation in teaching on contraception.
Contraception, John Paul stressed, "falsifies the intrinsic significance" of giving and receiving which was proper to the marital act while natural methods "provide the opportunity of abstaining from sexual relations when justified reasons of responsibility" require that conception be avoided.
NFP was a question of "understanding the truth of human love in the divine plan", John Paul said, It was not simply using knowledge about female fertility and the physiology of sexuality.