A buffer against challenges to the Church’s ethical stances

‘Humanae Vitae’ is the defended gateway that has held the ground against further ideological incursions into the ecclesial sheepfold, writes Margaret Hickey.

When Paul VI issued his long-awaited encyclical on contraception, ‘Humanae Vitae’, on July 25, 1968, he knew he was lobbing something of a grenade into the Church’s discourse on marriage, moral life, and papal authority.