By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
An Italian newspaper has published a recently discovered booklet written by then Cardinal Karol Wojtyla in 1968 to help couples implement Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae.
According to a report appearing on CathNews, the booklet, entitled “Rule for Spouses,” was never made public outside the Archdiocese of Krakow, but was recently discovered by a student from the John Paul II Institute for Life and Family in Rome.
In his introduction, Cardinal Wojtyla wrote that “the present Rule sprouts from a series of pastoral experiences with some married couples and, at the same time, from the marriage experience of couples themselves.”
The Rule, he wrote, “is born simultaneously with the publication of the encyclical Humanae Vitae, which proposes to spouses and their pastors the Gospel’s demand for authentically Christian marriages.”
“The Rule is aimed at married couples in their entirety and not to spouses as individuals. It is important, indeed, that it is adopted and put in practice by the couple, not solely the husbands or wives without the commitment of their spouses.”
The future Pope John Paul explains that “the specific goal of the Humanae Vitae groups is the continuing commitment toward a spiritual perspective, so that the integral teachings of Christ our Lord about marriage and family, announced by the Church, may become real in their marriages, with a full understanding and full love.”
“Therefore, it is about creating an adequate spirituality, that is to say, an interior life, that will allow the organization of marriage and family life in a Christian way,” Cardinal Wojtyla wrote.
“Such spirituality cannot exist in a definitive manner based on the model of religious congregations, but must be constantly reworked,” the introduction concludes.
The booklet will be officially presented (in Italian) on April 24. Plans for an English translation of the “Rule for Spouses,” have not yet been announced.
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