Father Maurizio Chiodi, a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, recently gave a speech at the Jesuit-run Gregorian University in Rome defending the use of contraception.
Father Chiodi's address, entitled “Rereading Humanae Vitae in the Light of Amoris Laetitia,” was given at a conference dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the publication of Humanae Vitae (The Regulation of Birth). Does this portend a doctrinal push similar to what we've seen on the matter of Communion for the divorced and civilly remarried? If we look at the speech in the light of two other recent Vatican events, the answer is unavoidable.
The first is the revelation that Pope Francis has established a new birth-control commission on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Humanae Vitae. The commission's charge is to “reinterpret” the encyclical's teaching “in the light of Amoris Laetitia.” Heading the four-man commission is Msgr. Gilfredo Marengo, a bitter critic of Paul VI's great encyclical. In 2015, in the magazine Vatican Insider, Msgr. Marengo suggested “abandoning a conception of doctrinal patrimony of the Church as a closed system, impermeable to questions and provocations of the here and now.”
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