The Encyclical Humanae Vitae

Dietrich von Hildebrand’s The Encyclical Humanae Vitae: A Sign of Contradiction was published mere months after Pope Paul VI promulgated the eponymous encyclical. The much-anticipated encyclical quickly proved to be among the most contentious papal documents ever published; the uproar against it was immediate, intense, and widespread—even, perhaps especially, among Catholic intellectuals and clergy in Western countries. It was in this milieu that Dietrich von Hildebrand published his The Encyclical Humanae Vitae: A Sign of Contradiction, and in doing so, became one of the first Catholic intellectuals of public stature to defend the encyclical. “To read The Encyclical Humanae Vitae: A Sign of Contradiction by Dietrich von Hildebrand some five decades later is a very consoling experience,” writes Tracey Rowland, in her foreword to the book. “It bears testimony to the fact that at least one Catholic married man had the necessary spiritual and intellectual capital to make the right judgment call and explain it within the broader context of the Church’s understanding of the sacrament of marriage and the work of the human conscience.”