Pope Francis took the opportunity during an address to families in the Philippines to praise Blessed Pope Paul VI’s encyclical opposing contraception and affirming Church teaching on sɛҳuąƖity and human life.

The Pope spoke Friday to families gathered at the Mall of Asia Arena in Manila during his Jan. 15-19 visit to the Philippines.

After discussing various threats to the family, including “a lack of openness to life,” he deviated briefly from his prepared remarks, transitioning from English to his native Spanish in order to speak from the heart about the subject.

“I think of Blessed Paul VI,” he said. “In a moment of that challenge of the growth of populations, he had the strength to defend openness to life.”

In 1968, Pope Paul VI released the encyclical Humanae Vitae, which upheld Catholic teaching on sɛҳuąƖity and the immorality of artificial contraception, predicting the negative consequences that would result from a cultural acceptance of birth control.

“He knew the difficulties that families experience, and that’s why in his encyclical, he expressed compassion for particular cases. And he taught professors to be particularly compassionate with particular cases,” Pope Francis said.

“But he went further. He looked to the peoples beyond. He saw the lack and the problem that it could cause families in the future. Paul VI was courageous. He was a good pastor, and he warned his sheep about the wolves that were approaching, and from the heavens he blesses us today.”

Pope Francis’ comments come in the wake of Philippines president Benigno Aquino's signing a highly controversial reproductive health bill in 2013 that drew strong protest from local bishops and members of the faith.

The legislation requires government-sanctioned sex education for adults, middle school and high school students, as well as a population control program that includes fully subsidized contraceptives under government health insurance. The nation's bishops spoke out strongly against the measure.

Elsewhere in Pope Francis’ address, he spoke about the threats to family posed by natural disasters, poverty, migration, and a redefinition of marriage.

He called for “good and strong families to overcome these threats.”

“Be sanctuaries of respect for life, proclaiming the sacredness of every human life from conception to natural death,” he urged.

The Pope encouraged regular family prayer to hear and understand the will of God, as well as action to be prophetic witnesses in the world.

He deviated from the text of his remarks on several other occasions as well, speaking about his love for St. Joseph and the importance of dreaming within a family.

“When you lose this capacity to dream, you lose the capacity to love, and this energy to love is lost,” he said.

In addition, Pope Francis warned against an “ideological colonization” that does not originate with God, but that tries to destroy the family.

The Pope asked Christians to pray to St. Joseph for the wisdom to identify and reject ideas and initiatives that are driven by these false ideologies and threaten the family.

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/paul-vi-was-right-to-warn-against-contraception-pope-francis-says-71589/

Did Pope Francis actually condemn birth control by naming it or did he use the typically "wishy-washy" code words like "openness to life" or make open-ended statements such as " we must oppose ideologies of death" - these kind of statements could be interpreted to mean whatever the listener wanted them to mean because who could be certain what the sender of the message is actually saying?  Political leftists accuse their opponents of holding ideas of despair and abortionists claim that abortion culls the burdensome unwanteds and that they are the ones who are truly open to life.  

The Pope needs to address birth control in a declarative one-liner by saying bluntly " If you are using birth control, you will go to Hell."  Fancy double-talk is fraudulent because it does not warm the soul in mortal sin and it gives the Catholic the impression that Pope Francis is defending Catholic principles when he may actually be saying no such thing.  Vagueness can rightly be considered deceptive but to which side?  Both.  The pious soul may not need to be reminded but the pius soul can become perplexed by the double talk on such a clear cut moral issue whereas the soul in mortal sin has a right to be warned - this warning is not generally found in today's public square and now you have to read between the lines to even imagine that the Pope himself is giving this warning.

This reminds me of the other day with the manipulating headlines claiming a condemnation of yoga and zen, when in fact the statement lumped them all in with catechism.

And from another source:

To be sure, the pontiff also asked priests hearing confessions to be “very generous” in individual cases, meaning that they should show compassion to couples using birth control, but he left no doubt that the broad Catholic rule isn’t about to change.

http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2015/01/16/pope-francis-criticizes-gαy-marriage-backs-contraception-ban/?s_campaign=crux:rss?s_campaign=camp:email:ja


So, no change in the rule, but wink, wink.

He asked the priests to be merciful. It is not wink wink but rather that they create an atmosphere that invites people to go to confession often and to confess their sins.