Learning to be Quick to Listen

The Second Vatican Council , in Gaudium et Spes , laid out a profoundly balanced vision for family life. Article 50 of the Constitution teaches that parents must exercise " responsible parenthood ," which requires a serious and prudent consideration of not just the number of children, but the full context of their lives: the physical, economic, psychological, and social conditions of the spouses, the welfare of children already born, and the couple’s own material and spiritual well-being. This is not a simple endorsement of family planning , but a solemn obligation; it calls married couples to be mindful of their duties to God, to themselves, to their families, and to society, ensuring that the decision to welcome new life is always made with freedom, wisdom, and genuine generosity of spirit. Pope Saint John Paul II , through his extensive work on the Theology of the Body and his Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio , further deepened this teaching by placing respons...

Marking the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council and the start of a special Year of Faith, Pope Benedict XVI called on Catholics to revive the “authentic spirit” of Vatican II by re-proposing the church’s ancient teachings to an increasingly Godless modern world. Vatican II, Pope Benedict said, had been “animated by a desire...to immerse itself anew in the Christian mystery so as to re-propose it fruitfully to contemporary man.” He noted that Blessed John XXIII, in his speech at the opening of the council, called for both the safeguarding and the effective teaching of the “sacred deposit of Christian doctrine...this certain and immutable doctrine, which is to be faithfully respected, [and] needs to be explored and presented in a way which responds to the needs our time.” Calling for a revival in the church of the “yearning to announce Christ again to contemporary man,” the pope stressed that any new evangelization “needs to be built on a concrete and precise ba...