![]() The PAV considered the event essentially academic in nature, as it intended also to discuss “controversial aspects of the theological ethics of life,” adopting a method “analogous to the medieval disputations or the quaestiones disputatae.” The difficulty is that by using the dialectic method, which is in itself legitimate and seeks to arrive at the truth by confronting contrary positions, the PAV risks causing scandal, even if its intentions are purely academic. The volume Etica teologica della vita gathers the proceedings of a three-day seminar, held by the PAV from October 30 to November 1, 2021, and dedicated to some of the great questions of life and death. ![]() The new approach, adopted by the PAV text, is in fact to state the opposite of the teaching, while at the same time claiming that one agrees. In previous times, people who did not agree with the teaching of Humanae Vitae or Donum Vitae simply said that they begged to differ and gave their reasons. ![]() The authors maintain that by proposing the possible moral liceity of contraception and artificial procreation, they are not going against, but simply beyond the letter of previous ecclesial documents, ultimately bringing to fulfillment the deepest intentions of these magisterial texts. Closer inspection is necessary because the text is more subtle than simply saying that Humanae Vitae (as the magisterium’s basic document on contraception) or Donum Vitae (as the magisterium’s basic document on artificial reproductive technologies-the “ARTs”) have gotten it wrong. In what follows we will present a critical analysis of the book’s section that makes these claims. The revolution relates to both the content and the way of arguing. ![]() In the recent volume Etica teologica della vita: Scrittura, tradizione, sfide pratiche ( Theological Ethics of Life: Scripture, Tradition, Practical Challenges), the Pontifical Academy for Life (PAV) proposes a revolution of Catholic sexual morality, suggesting that, given the right attitudes on the part of spouses, the practice of contraception and homologous artificial procreation can be morally licit, thus directly contradicting the Church’s magisterium as found, for instance, in Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae (1968), in Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae (1995), and in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s instructions Donum Vitae (1987) and Dignitatis Personae (2008). ![]()
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