POPE John Paul II has urged newlyweds to read and meditate on Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae. During a general audience at the Vatican last week, the Pope called the encyclical, released 20 years ago, an "important document" which teaches "responsible parenthood."
The Pope also began his summer sojourn at the papal hilltop retreat in Castel Gandolfo, from which he delivered his regular Sunday Angelus talk. At the audience, the Pope met with about 7,000 pilgrims and visitors in the Pope Paul VI hall at the Vatican. The audience, normally scheduled for Wednesday, had been rescheduled to Saturday because of the papal vacation in the Dolomite Mountains in Northern Italy.
He spoke to newlyweds in the audience about the 1968 encyclical condemning the regulation of births by artificial means.
Pope John Paul said couples should read and meditate on "this important document of the Church, which with enlightened doctrinal certainty and with profound human sensitivity traces the necessary directives for realising a responsible parenthood." The Pope greeted various groups of visitors in the audience, including youth choirs from Derry, Northern Ireland,and Folkestone, England. He encouraged them to "promote harmony in society, to silence the discordant sounds of violence."