Love, Marriage, and the Catholic Conscience: Understanding the Church's Teachings on Birth Control

by Dietrich von Hildebrand

What every Christian needs to know... about love, marriage, and contraception eye-opening reasons for you to give these Church teachings a closer look. Finally, you can learn the full truth about how contraception relates to love and marriage, -What the Church really teaches about contraception
-Why these teachings matter so much
-How they fit into the larger picture of Christian love and marriage.
Once you master the well-crafted explanations in these pages, you ll put to rest any lingering doubts or difficulties you, your family, or your friends may have about the Church s stance on contraception. You ll come to see God s hand at work in this hotly debated area of Church teaching. Best of all, as you make these truths your own, your marriage and family life will shine forth anew with the splendor of the Divine Presence.

Genres: Marriage, Catholic, Religion

143 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1998

About the author

Dietrich von Hildebrand was a German Catholic philosopher and theologian who was called (informally) by Pope Pius XII "the 20th Century Doctor of the Church."

Pope John Paul II greatly admired the work of von Hildebrand, remarking once to von Hildebrand's widow, Alice von Hildebrand, "Your husband is one of the great ethicists of the twentieth century." Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has a particular admiration and regard for Dietrich von Hildebrand, whom he already knew as a young priest in Munich. In fact, as young Fr. Ratzinger, he even served as an assistant pastor in the church of St. Georg in Munich, which von Hildebrand frequented in the 1950s and 1960s. It was also in St. Georg that Dietrich and Alice von Hildebrand were married.

The degree of Pope Benedict's esteem is expressed in one of his statements about von Hildebrand, "When the intellectual history of the Catholic Church in the twentieth century is written, the name of Dietrich von Hildebrand will be most prominent among the figures of our time." Von Hildebrand was a vocal critic of the changes in the church brought by the Second Vatican Council. He especially resented the new liturgy. Of it he said "Truly, if one of the devils in C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters had been entrusted with the ruin of the liturgy, he could not have done it better."

Von Hildebrand died in New Rochelle, New York, in 1977.

Reviews

[Leslie Moellering · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read Humanae Vitae before and this book does a good job of fleshing it out. The church's teaching on love and sexuality is beautiful. It's unfortunate how distorted it is today in the hearts of many.

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this book gives a good introduction to Von Hildebrand’s view of love and marriage. Two things I was disappointed with: 1) I think the text of Humanae Vitae should have come first, before the explanation and “commentary.” 2) I thought the explanation of conscience could have been clearer. For example, although it was alluded to, synderesis was never explicitly mentioned.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

He presents everything in a very accessible way. It’s an easy read. I would definitely recommend it.

[Wendy · Rating 1 out of 5]

The vocabulary of this work made it difficult for me to read / understand, as I frequently had to look up definitions. I feel like the message of this book is, if you in your marriage have very serious reasons for wanting to space out children and find natural family planning difficult to implement, that you are to take that frustration as your cross to bear. I feel like this book offers a lot of philosophy about "how things should be" which may or may not translate to how things actually are in the world today... There is so much sexual sin in our world. But, this book does provide thorough information on where church stands on the issue of contraception.